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BERKELEY 

UNIVERSITY   OF 

CALIFORNIA 


B«   ^  r<md   Smith 

Act  ■>' 
140 


The  Wind  Among  the  Reeds 


By  the  Same  Author 
Poems 

The  Secret  Rose 
The  Celtic  Twilight 
John  Sherman 


The  Wind 
Among  the  Reeds 


BY 

W.  B.  YEATS 


% 


JOHN   LANE:    THE   BODLEY   HEAD 

NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

1902 


Copyright,  r8QQ 
By  John   Lane 

All  rights  rtservtd 


The  University  Press,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


953 


PAGE 

The  Hosting  of  the  Sidhe i 

The  Everlasting  Voices 3 

The  Moods 4 

Aedh  tells  of  the  Rose  in  his  Heart  ...  5 

The  Host  of  the  Air 7 

Breasal  the  Fisherman 10 

A  Cradle  Song 11 

Into  the  Twilight 13 

The  Song  of  Wandering  Aengus 15 

The  Song  of  the  old  Mother 17 

The  Fiddler  of  Dooney 18 

The  Heart  of  the  Woman 20 

Aedh  Laments  the  Loss  of  Love 21 

mongan  laments  the  change  that  has  come 

upon  him  and  his  beloved 22 

V 


332 


PAGH 

Michael   Robartes   bids   his   Beloved  be  at 

Peace 24 

Hanrahan  reproves  the  Curlew 26 

Michael     Robartes     remembers     forgotten 

Beauty 27 

A  Poet  to  his  Beloved 29 

Aedh  gives  his  Beloved  certain  Rhymes  .    .  30 

To  my  Heart,  bidding  it  have  no  Fear     .    .  31 

The  Cap  and  Bells 32 

The  Valley  of  the  Black  Pig 35 

Michael  Robartes  asks  Forgiveness  because 

of  his  many  Moods 37 

Aedh  tells  of  a  Valley  full  of  Lovers.      .  40 

Aedh  tells  of  the  perfect  Beauty  ....  42 

Aedh  hears  the  Cry  of  the  Sedge   ....  43 
Aedh  thinks  of  those  who  have  spoken  Evil 

of  his  Beloved 44 

The  Blessed 45 

The  Secret  Rose 47 

Hanrahan  laments  because  of  his  Wander- 
ings.   51 

The  Travail  of  Passion 52 

vi 


54 


55 


The  Poet  pleads  with  his   Friend  for  old 
Friends 

Hanrahan  speaks  to  the  Lovers  of  his  Songs 

in  coming  Days 

Aedh  pleads  with  the  Elemental  Powers  .  57 
Aedh  wishes  his  Beloved  were  dead  ...  59 
Aedh  wishes  for  the  Cloths  of  Heaven  .  .  60 
mongan  thinks  of  his  past  greatness  .  .  .  6l 
Notes 65 


Vll 


THE   HOSTING   OF   THE   SIDHE 

The  host  is  riding  from  Knocknarea 
And  over  the  grave  of  Clooth-na-bare; 
Caolte  tossing  his  burning  hair 
And  Niamh  calling  Away,  come  away: 
E?npty  your  heart  of  its  mortal  dream. 
The  winds  awaken,   the  leaves  whirl  round. 
Our  cheeks  are  pale,  our  hair  is  unbound, 
Our  breasts  are  heaving,  our  eyes  are  a-glea7n, 
Our  arms  are  waving,  our  lips  are  apart; 
And  if  any  gaze  on  our  rusJiing  band, 
We   come   between   him    and  the    deed   of  his 
hand, 

I  T 


We   come   betwee?i   him    and  the   hope   of   his 

heart. 
The  host  is  rushing  'twixt  night  and  day, 
And  where  is  there  hope  or  deed  as  fair? 
Caolte  tossing  his  burning  hair, 

And  Niamh  calling  Away,  come  away. 


THE   EVERLASTING  VOICES 

O  sweet  everlasting  Voices  be  still; 
Go  to  the  guards  of  the  heavenly  fold 
And  bid  them  wander  obeying  your  will 
Flame  under  flame,  till  Time  be  no  more; 
Have  you  not  heard  that  our  hearts  are  old, 
That  you  call  in  birds,   in  wind  on  the  hill, 
In  shaken  boughs,   in  tide  on  the  shore? 
O  sweet  everlasting  Voices  be  still. 


THE   MOODS 

Time  drops  in  decay, 
Like  a  candle  burnt  out, 
And  the  mountains  and  woods 
Have  their  day,  have  their  day; 
What  one  in  the  rout 
Of  the  fire-born  moods, 
Has  fallen  away? 


AEDH   TELLS   OF  THE  ROSE  IN   HIS 

HEART 

All  things  uncomely  and  broken,  all   things 

worn  out  and  old, 
The  cry  of  a  child  by  the  roadway,  the  creak 

of  a  lumbering  cart, 
The  heavy  steps  of  the  ploughman,  splashing 

the  wintry  mould, 
Are   wronging   your   image    that    blossoms   a 

rose  in  the  deeps  of  my  heart. 

The   wrong   of   unshapely   things   is   a  wrong 

too  great  to  be  told; 
5 


I  hunger  to   build   them   anew   and   sit   on  a 

green  knoll  apart, 
With  the   earth   and   the   sky  and   the  water, 

remade,   like  a  casket  of  gold 
For  my  dreams  of  your  image  that  blossoms 

a  rose  in  the  deeps  of  my  heart. 


THE   HOST   OF  THE   AIR 

O'Driscoll  drove  with  a  song, 
The  wild  duck  and  the  drake, 
From  the  tall  and  the  tufted  reeds 
Of  the  drear  Hart  Lake. 

And  he  saw  how  the  reeds  grew  dark 
At  the  coming  of  night  tide, 
And  dreamed  of  the  long  dim  hair 
Of  Bridget  his  bride. 

He  heard  while  he  sang  and  dreamed 

A  piper  piping  away, 

And  never  was  piping  so  sad, 

And  never  was  piping  so  gay. 

7 


And  he  saw  young  men  and  young  girls 
Who  danced  on  a  level  place 
And  Bridget  his  bride  among  them, 
With  a  sad  and  a  gay  face. 

The  dancers  crowded  about  him, 

And  many  a  sweet  thing  said, 

And  a  young  man  brought  him  red  wine 

And  a  young  girl  white  bread. 

But  Bridget  drew  him  by  the  sleeve, 
Away  from  the  merry  bands, 
To  old  men  playing  at  cards 
With  a  twinkling  of  ancient  hands. 

The  bread  and  the  wine  had  a  doom, 
For  these  were  the  host  of  the  air; 
He  sat  and  played  in  a  dream 


Of  her  long  dim  hair. 


8 


He  played  with  the  merry  old  men 
And  thought  not  of  evil  chance, 
Until  one  bore  Bridget  his  bride 
Away  from  the  merry  dance. 

He  bore  her  away  in  his  arms, 

The  handsomest  young  man  there, 

And  his  neck  and  his  breast  and  his  arms 

Were  drowned  in  her  long  dim  hair. 

O'Driscoll  scattered  the  cards 

And  out  of  his  dream  awoke: 

Old  men  and  young  men  and  young  girls 

Were  gone  like  a  drifting  smoke; 

Bnt  he  heard  high  up  in  the  air 

A  piper  piping  away, 

And  never  was  piping  so  sad, 

And  never  was  piping  so  gay. 

9 


BREASAL  THE   FISHERMAN 

Although  you  hide  in  the  ebb  and  flow 

Of  the  pale  tide  when  the  moon  has  set, 

The  people  of  coming  days  will  know 

About  the  casting  out  of  my  net, 

And  how  you  have  leaped  times  out  of  mind 

Over  the  little  silver  cords, 

And  think  that  you  were  hard  and  unkind, 

And  blame  you  with  many  bitter  words. 


10 


A  CRADLE   SONG 

The   Danann    children    laugh,    in   cradles   of 

wrought  gold, 
And  clap  their  hands  together,  and  half  close 

their  eyes, 
For  they  will   ride  the   North  when   the  ger- 

eagle  flies, 
With    heavy   whitening    wings,    and    a  heart 

fallen  cold: 
I  kiss   my  wailing   child   and   press  it  to  my 

breast, 
And  hear  the  narrow  graves  calling  my  child 

and  me. 

ii 


Desolate  winds  that  cry  over  the  wandering 
sea; 

Desolate  winds  that  hover  in  the  flaming 
West; 

Desolate  winds  that  beat  the  doors  of 
Heaven,  and  beat 

The  doors  of  Hell  and  blow  there  many  a 
whimpering  ghost; 

O  heart  the  winds  have  shaken;  the  unap- 
peasable host 

Is  comelier  than  candles  before  Maurya's 
feet. 


12 


INTO   THE  TWILIGHT 

Out-worn  heart,  in  a  time  out-worn, 
Come  clear  of  the  nets  of  wrong  and  right; 
Laugh  heart  again  in  the  gray  twilight, 
Sigh,   heart,  again  in  the  dew  of  the  morn. 

Your  mother  Eire   is  always  young, 
Dew  ever  shining  and  twilight  gray; 
Though  hope  fall  from  you  and  love  decay, 
Burning  in  fires  of  a  slanderous  tongue. 

Come,  heart,  where  hill  is  heaped  upon  hill 

For  there  the  mystical  brotherhood 

Of  sun  and  moon  and  hollow  and  wood 

And  river  and  stream  work  out  their  will; 

13 


And  God  stands  winding  His  lonely  horn, 
And  time  and  the  world  are  ever  in  flight; 
And  love  is  less  kind  than  the  gray  twilight, 
And   hope   is  less  dear  than  the   dew  of   the 
morn. 


14 


THE  SONG  OF  WANDERING  AENGUS 

I  WENT  out  to  the  hazel  wood, 

Because  a  fire  was  in  my  head, 

And  cut  and  peeled  a  hazel  wand, 

And  hooked  a  berry  to  a  thread; 

And  when  white  moths  were  on  the  wing, 

And  moth-like  stars  were  flickering  out, 

I  dropped  the  berry  in  a  stream 

And  caught  a  little  silver  trout. 

When  I  had  laid  it  on  the  floor 

I  went  to  blow  the  fire  a-flame, 

But  something  rustled  on  the  floor, 

And  someone  called  me  by  my  name: 

15 


It  had  become  a  glimmering  girl 
With  apple  blossom   in  her  hair 
Who  called  me  by  my  name  and  ran 
And  faded  through  the  brightening  air. 

Though  I  am  old  with  wandering 
Through  hollow  lands  and  hilly  lands, 
I  will  find  out  where  she  has  gone, 
And  kiss  her  lips  and  take  her  hands; 
And  walk  among  long  dappled  grass, 
And  pluck  till  time  and  times  are  done, 
The  silver  apples  of  the  moon, 
The  golden  apples  of  the  sun. 


16 


THE    SONG   OF  THE   OLD   MOTHER 

I  RISE  in  the  dawn,  and  I  kneel  and  blow 
Till  the  seed  of  the  fire  flicker  and  glow; 
And  then  I  must  scrub  and  bake  and  sweep 
Till  stars  are  beginning  to  blink  and  peep; 
And  the  young   lie   long  and   dream  in  their 

bed 
Of   the   matching   of   ribbons   for   bosom   and 

head, 

And  their  day  goes  over  in  idleness, 

And  they  sigh  if  the  wind  but  lift  a  tress: 

While  I  must  work  because  I  am  old, 

And  the  seed  of  the  fire  gets  feeble  and  cold. 

17 


THE   FIDDLER   OF   DOONEY 

When  I  play  on  my  fiddle  in  Dooney, 
Folk  dance  like  a  wave  of  the  sea; 
My  cousin  is  priest  in  Kilvarnet, 
My  brother  in  Moharabuiee. 

I  passed  my  brother  and  cousin: 
They  read  in  their  books  of  prayer; 
I  read  in  my  book  of  songs 
I  bought  at  the  Sligo  fair. 

When  we  come  at  the  end  of  time, 

To  Peter  sitting  in  state, 

He  will  smile  on  the  three  old  spirits, 

But  call  me  first  through  the  gate; 

18 


For  the  good  are  always  the  merry, 
Save  by  an  evil  chance, 
And  the  merry  love  the  fiddle 
And  the  merry  love  to  dance: 

And  when  the  folk  there  spy  me, 
They  will  all  come  up  to  me, 
With  '  Here  is  the  fiddler  of  Dooney ! ' 
And  dance  like  a  wave  of  the  sea. 


19 


THE   HEART   OF  THE   WOMAN 

O  what  to  me  the  little  room 

That  was  brimmed  up  with  prayer  and  rest; 

He  bade  me  out  into  the  gloom, 

And  my  breast  lies  upon  his  breast. 

O  what  to  me  my  mother's  care, 
The  house  where  I  was  safe  and  warm; 
The  shadowy  blossom  of  my  hair 
Will  hide  us  from  the  bitter  storm. 

0  hiding  hair  and  dewy  eyes, 

1  am  no  more  with  life  and  death, 

My  heart  upon  his  warm  heart  lies, 

My  breath  is  mixed  into  his  breath. 

20 


AEDH  LAMENTS  THE  LOSS  OF  LOVE 

Pale  brows,  still  hands  and  dim  hair, 
I  had  a  beautiful  friend 
And  dreamed  that  the  old  despair 
Would  end  in  love  in  the  end: 
She  looked  in  my  heart  one  day 
And  saw  your  image  was  there; 
She  has  gone  weeping  away. 


21 


MONGAN  LAMENTS  THE  CHANGE 
THAT  HAS  COME  UPON  HIM  AND 
HIS  BELOVED 

Do  you  not  hear  me  calling,  white  deer  with 

no  horns ! 
I  have  been  changed  to  a  hound  with  one  red 

ear; 
I  have  been  in  the   Path  of   Stones  and  the 

Wood  of  Thorns, 
For  somebody  hid  hatred  and  hope  and  desire 

and  fear 

Under  my  feet  that  they  follow  you  night  and 

day. 

22 


A  man  with  a  hazel  wand  came  without  sound ; 

He  changed  me  suddenly;  I  was  looking  an- 
other way; 

And  now  my  calling  is  but  the  calling  of  a 
hound ; 

And  Time  and  Birth  and  Change  are  hurry- 
ing by. 

I  would  that  the  boar  without  bristles  had 
come  from  the  West 

And  had  rooted  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars 
out  of  the  sky 

And  lay  in  the  darkness,  grunting,  and  turning 
to  his  rest. 


23 


MICHAEL    ROBARTES    BIDS    HIS 
BELOVED   BE   AT   PEACE 

I  HEAR  the  Shadowy  Horses,  their  long  manes 
a-shake, 

Their  hoofs  heavy  with  tumult,  their  eyes 
glimmering  white; 

The  North  unfolds  above  them  clinging, 
creeping  night, 

The  East  her  hidden  joy  before  the  morning 
break, 

The  West  weeps  in  pale  dew  and  sighs  pass- 
ing away, 

The  South  is  pouring  down  roses  of   crimson 

fire: 

24 


O    vanity   of    Sleep,    Hope,    Dream,    endless 

Desire, 
The  Horses  of   Disaster  plunge  in  the  heavy 

clay: 
Beloved,   let   your   eyes  half   close,  and   your 

heart  beat 
Over   my   heart,  and  your   hair  fall   over  my 

breast, 
Drowning  love's  lonely  hour  in  deep  twilight 

of  rest, 
And   hiding   their    tossing    manes    and   their 

tumultuous  feet. 


25 


HANRAHAN   REPROVES  THE 
CURLEW 

O,  CURLEW,   cry  no  more  in  the  air, 
Or  only  to  the  waters  in  the  West; 
Because  your  crying  brings  to  my  mind 
Passion-dimmed  eyes  and  long  heavy  hair 
That  was  shaken  out  over  my  breast: 
There  is  enough  evil  in  the  crying  of  wind. 


26 


MICHAEL     ROBARTES     REMEMBERS 
FORGOTTEN    BEAUTY 

When  my  arms  wrap  you  round  I  press 

My  heart  upon  the  loveliness 

That  has  long  faded  from  the  world; 

The  jewelled  crowns  that  kings  have  hurled 

In  shadowy  pools,  when  armies  fled ; 

The  love-tales  wove  with  silken  thread 

By  dreaming  ladies  upon  cloth 

That  has  made  fat  the  murderous  moth; 

The  roses  that  of  old  time  were 

Woven  by  ladies  in  their  hair, 

The  dew-cold  lilies  ladies  bore 

27 


Through  many  a  sacred  corridor 
Where  such  gray  clouds  of  incense  rose 
That  only  the  gods'  eyes  did  not  close: 
For  that  pale  breast  and  lingering  hand 
Come  from  a  more  dream-heavy  land, 
A  more  dream-heavy  hour  than  this; 
And  when  you  sigh  from  kiss  to  kiss 
I  hear  white  Beauty  sighing,  too, 
For  hours  when  all  must  fade  like  dew 
But  flame  on  flame,  deep  under  deep, 
Throne  over  throne,  where  in  half  sleep 
Their  swords  upon  their  iron  knees 
Brood  her  high  lonely  mysteries. 


28 


A   POET   TO    HIS   BELOVED 

I  bring  you  with  reverent  hands 
The  books  of  my  numberless  dreams ; 
White  woman  that  passion  has  worn 
As  the  tide  wears  the  dove-gray  sands, 
And  with  heart  more  old  than  the  horn 
That  is  brimmed  from  the  pale  fire  of  time 
White  woman  with  numberless  dreams 
I  bring  you  my  passionate  rhyme. 


29 


AEDH  GIVES  HIS  BELOVED  CERTAIN 
RHYMES 

Fasten  your  hair  with  a  golden  pin, 
And  bind  up  every  wandering  tress; 
I  bade  my  heart  build  these  poor  rhymes : 
It  worked  at  them,  clay  out,  day  in, 
Building  a  sorrowful  loveliness 
Out  of  the  battles  of  old  times. 

You  need  but  lift  a  pearl-pale  hand, 

And  bind  up  your  long  hair  and  sigh; 

And  all  men's  hearts  must  burn  and  beat; 

And  candle-like  foam  on  the  dim  sand, 

And  stars  climbing  the  dew-dropping  sky, 

Live  but  to  light  your  passing  feet. 

30 


TO    MY    HEART,    BIDDING    IT    HAVE 
NO   FEAR 

Be  you  still,  be  you  still,  trembling  heart; 
Remember  the  wisdom  out  of  the  old  days : 
Him  who  trembles  before  the  flame  and  the  flood, 
And  the  winds  that  blow  through  the  starry  zvays, 
Let  the  starry  winds  and  the  flame  and  the  flood 
Cover  over  and  hide,  for  he  has  no  part 
With  the  proud,  majestical  multitude. 


31 


THE   CAP  AND   BELLS 

The  jester  walked  in  the  garden: 
The  garden  had  fallen  still; 
He  bade  his  soul  rise  upward 
And  stand  on  her  window-sill. 

It  rose  in  a   straight  blue  garment, 
When  owls  began  to  call : 
It  had  grown  wise-tongued  by  thinking 
Of  a  quiet  and  light  footfall ; 

But  the  young  queen  would  not  listen; 

She  rose  in  her  pale  night  gown ; 

She  drew  in  the  heavy  casement 

And  pushed  the  latches  down. 

32 


He  bade  his  heart  go  to  her, 
When  the  owls  called  out  no  more; 
In  a  red  and  quivering  garment 


It  sang  to  her  through  the  door. 


It  had  grown  sweet-tongued  by  dreaming, 
Of  a  flutter  of  flower-like  hair; 
But  she  took  up  her  fan  from  the  table 
And  waved  it  off  on  the  air. 

'  I  have  cap  and  bells  '  he  pondered, 
1  I  will  send  them  to  her  and  die; ' 
And  when  the  morning  whitened 
He  left  them  where  she  went  by. 

She  laid  them  upon  her  bosom, 

Under  a  cloud  of  her  hair, 

And  her  red  lips  sang  them  a  love  song : 

Till  stars  grew  out  of  the  air. 
3  33 


She  opened  her  door  and  her  window, 
And  the  heart  and  the  soul  came  through, 
To  her  right  hand  came  the  red  one, 
To  her  left  hand  came  the  blue. 

They  set  up  a  noise  like  crickets, 
A  chattering  wise  and  sweet, 
And  her  hair  was  a  folded  flower 
And  the  quiet  of  love  in  her  feet. 


34 


THE   VALLEY   OF  THE   BLACK   PIG 

The  dews    drop    slowly   and   dreams  gather: 

unknown  spears 
Suddenly   hurtle    before   my   dream-awakened 

eyes, 
And  then  the  clash  of  fallen  horsemen  and  the 

cries 
Of  unknown  perishing  armies  beat  about  my 

ears. 
We  who  still   labour  by  the  cromlec  on   the 

shore, 

The  grey  cairn  on  the  hill,   when  day  sinks 

drowned  in  dew, 

35 


Being  weary  of  the  world's  empires,  bow  down 
to  you 

Master  of   the  still  stars  and  of   the   flaming 
door. 


36 


MICHAEL  ROBARTES  ASKS  FOR- 
GIVENESS BECAUSE  OF  HIS 
MANY     MOODS 

If  this  importunate  heart  trouble   your  peace 

With  words  lighter  than  air, 

Or   hopes   that    in   mere    hoping    flicker   and 

cease ; 
Crumple  the  rose  in  your  hair; 
And    cover   your   lips   with    odorous    twilight 

and  say, 

'  O  Hearts  of  wind-blown  flame ! 

'  O  Winds,  elder  than  changing  of  night  and 

day, 

37 


1  That  murmuring  and  longing  came, 

1  From  marble  cities  loud  with  tabors  of  old 

1  In  dove-gray  faery  lands; 

*  From  battle  banners  fold  upon  purple  fold, 
1  Queens  wrought  with  glimmering  hands; 

'  That  saw  young  Niamh  hover  with  love-lorn 

face 
'Above  the  wandering  tide; 
'  And  lingered  in  the  hidden  desolate  place, 

*  Where  the  last  Phoenix  died 

*  And    wrapped    the    flames    above    his    holy 

head; 
'  And  still  murmur  and  long : 
'  O  Piteous    Hearts,   changing   till    change  be 

dead 
'In  a  tumultuous  song:' 
And  cover  the  pale  blossoms  of  your  breast 

38 


With  your  dim  heavy  hair, 
And  trouble  with  a  sigh  for  all  things    long- 
ing for  rest 
The  odorous  twilight  there. 


39 


AEDH  TELLS  OF  A  VALLEY  FULL 
OF  LOVERS 

I  DREAMED  that  I  stood  in  a  valley,  and  amid 
sighs, 

For  happy  lovers  passed  two  by  two  where  I 
stood; 

And  I  dreamed  my  lost  love  came  stealthily 
out  of  the  wood 

With  her  cloud-pale  eyelids  falling  on  dream- 
dimmed  eyes : 

I  cried  in  my  dream   '  O  women  bid  the  young 

men  lay 

40 


'  Their  heads  on  your  knees \  and  drown  their  eyes 

with  your  hair, 
*  Or  remembering  hers  they  will  find  no  other 

face  fair 
1  Till  all  the  valleys  of  the  world  have  been  with* 

ered  away. ' 


41 


AEDH  TELLS  OF  THE  PERFECT 
BEAUTY 

O  CLOUD-pale  eyelids,  dream-dimmed  eyes 
The  poets  labouring  all  their  days 
To  build  a  perfect  beauty  in  rhyme 
Are  overthrown  by  a  woman's  gaze 
And  by  the  unlabouring  brood  of  the  skies : 
And  therefore  my  heart  will  bow,  when  dew 
Is  dropping  sleep,  until  God  burn  time, 
Before  the  unlabouring  stars  and  you. 


42 


AEDH    HEARS   THE   CRY   OF   THE 
SEDGE 

I  wander  by  the  edge 

Of  this  desolate  lake 

Where  wind  cries  in  the  sedge 

Until  the  axle  break 

That  keeps  the  stars  in  their  round 

And  hands  hurl  in  the  deep 

The  banners  of  East  and  West 

And  the  girdle  of  light  is  tinbound, 

Your  breast  will  not  lie  by  the  breast 

Of  your  beloved  in  sleep. 


43 


AEDH  THINKS  OF  THOSE  WHO  HAVE 
SPOKEN  EVIL  OF  HIS  BELOVED 

Half  close  your  eyelids,  loosen  your  hair, 
And  dream  about  the  great  and  their  pride; 
They  have  spoken  against  you  everywhere, 
But  weigh  this  song  with  the  great  and  their 

pride; 
I  made  it  out  of  a  mouthful  of  air, 
Their  children's  children  shall  say  they  have 

lied. 


44 


THE   BLESSED 

CUMHx\L  called  out,  bending  his  head, 
Till  Dathi  came  and  stood, 
With  a  blink  in  his  eyes  at  the  cave  mouth, 
Between  the  wind  and  the  wood. 

And  Cumhal  said,  bending  his  knees, 
'  I  have  come  by  the  windy  way 
'  To  gather  the  half  of  your  blessedness 
1  And  learn  to  pray  when  you  pray. 

'  I  can  bring  you  salmon  out  of  the  streams 

*  And  heron  out  of  the  skies.' 

But  Dathi  folded  his  hands  and  smiled 

With  the  secrets  of  God  in  his  eyes. 

45 


And  Cumhal  saw  like  a  drifting  smoke 
All  manner  of  blessed  souls, 
Women  and  children,  young  men  with  books, 
And  old  men  with  croziers  and  stoles. 

'Praise  God  and  God's  mother,'  Dathi  said, 

*  For  God  and  God's  mother  have  sent 

1  The  blessedest  souls  that  walk  in  the  world 
'To  fill  your  heart  with  content.' 

1  And  which  is  the  blessedest, '  Cumhal  said, 
1  Where  all  are  comely  and  good? 
'  Is  it  these  that  with  golden  thuribles 
'  Are  singing  about  the  wood  ? ' 

'  My  eyes  are  blinking,'  Dathi  said, 
4  With  the  secrets  of  God  half  blind, 
'  But  I  can  see  where  the  wind  goes 

*  And  follow  the  way  of  the  wind ; 

4e 


'  And  blessedness  goes  where  the  wind  goes, 
'And  when  it  is  gone  we  are  dead ; 
'I  see  the  blessedest  soul  in  the  world 
'And  he  nods  a  drunken  head. 

'  O  blessedness  comes  in  the  night  and  the  day 
<  And  whither  the  wise  heart  knows ; 
« And  one  has  seen  in  the  redness  of  wine 
'  The  Incorruptible  Rose, 

'  That  drowsily  drops  faint  leaves  on  him 
'  And  the  sweetness  of  desire, 
1  While  time  and  the  world  are  ebbing  away 
'  In  twilights  of  dew  and  of  fire. ' 


47 


THE   SECRET   ROSE 

Far  off,  most  secret,  and  inviolate  Rose, 
Enfold  me  in  my  hour  of  hours ;  where  those 
Who  sought  thee  in  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
Or  in  the  wine  vat,   dwell  beyond  the  stir 
And  tumult  of  defeated  dreams;  and  deep 
Among  pale  eyelids,  heavy  with  the  sleep 
Men   have   named   beauty.     Thy  great  leaves 

enfold 
The  ancient   beards,  the   helms  of   ruby   and 

gold 
Of  the   crowned   Magi;    and  the   king  whose 

eyes 

48 


Saw   the   Pierced    Hands   and    Rood   of  elder 

rise 
In  druid  vapour  and  make  the  torches  dim; 
Till  vain  frenzy  awoke  and  he  died ;    and  him 
Who  met  Fand  walking  among  flaming  dew 
By    a     gray    shore    where     the     wind     never 

blew, 
And  lost  the  world  and  Emer  for  a  kiss; 
And    him   who    drove   the    gods   out   of  their 

liss, 
And  till  a  hundred  morns  had  flowered  red, 
Feasted  and  wept  the  barrows  of  his  dead; 
And  the  proud  dreaming  king  who  flung  the 

crown 

And  sorrow  away,  and  calling  bard  and  clown 

Dwelt  among  wine-stained   wanderers  in  deep 

woods ; 

4  49 


And   him   who   sold   tillage,    and   house,    and 

goods, 
And  sought  through  lands  and   islands   num- 
berless years, 
Until  he  found  with  laughter  and  with  tears, 
A  woman,  of  so  shining  loveliness, 
That   men    threshed   corn   at   midnight   by   a 

tress, 
A  little  stolen  tress.     I,  too,  await 
The  hour  of  thy  great  wind  of  love  and  hate. 
When  shall  the  stars  be  blown  about  the  sky, 
Like   the  sparks  blown  out  of   a  smithy,  and 

die? 
Surely  thine   hour  has  come,  thy  great  wind 

blows, 
Far  off,  most  secret,  and  inviolate  Rose? 

50 


HANRAHAN   LAMENTS  BECAUSE  OF 
HIS   WANDERINGS 

0  where  is  our  Mother  of  Peace 
Nodding  her  purple  hood? 

For  the  winds  that  awakened  the  stars 
Are  blowing  through  my  blood. 

1  would  that  the  death-pale  deer 
Had  come  through  the  mountain  side, 
And  trampled  the  mountain  away, 
And  drunk  up  the  murmuring  tide; 
For  the  winds  that  awakened  the  stars 
Are  blowing   through  my  blood, 

And  our  Mother  of  Peace  has  forgot  me 

Under  her  purple  hood. 

51 


THE  TRAVAIL   OF   PASSION 

When  the  flaming  lute-thronged  angelic  door 
is  wide; 

When  an  immortal  passion  breathes  in  mor- 
tal clay; 

Our  hearts  endure  the  scourge,  the  plaited 
thorns,  the  way 

Crowded  with  bitter  faces,  the  wounds  in 
palm  and  side, 

The  hyssop-heavy  sponge,  the  flowers  by 
Kidron  stream: 

We  will  bend  down  and  loosen  our  hair  over 

you, 

52 


That    it    may    drop    faint    perfume,    and    be 

heavy  with  dew, 
Lilies  of  death-pale  hope,  roses  of  passionate 

dream. 


53 


THE  POET  PLEADS  WITH  HIS  FRIEND 
FOR   OLD    FRIENDS 

THOUGH  you  are  in  your  shining  days, 

Voices  among  the  crowd 

And  new  friends  busy  with  your  praise, 

Be  not  unkind  or  proud, 

But  think  about  old  friends  the  most : 

Time's  bitter  flood  will  rise, 

Your  beauty  perish  and  be  lost 

For  all  eyes  but  these  eyes. 


54 


HANRAHAN  SPEAKS  TO  THE  LOVERS 
OF  HIS  SONGS  IN  COMING  DAYS 

O,  colleens,  kneeling  by  your  altar  rails  long 

hence, 
When  songs  I  wove  for  my  beloved  hide  the 

prayer, 
And    smoke     from     this     dead     heart     drifts 

through  the  violet  air 
And   covers   away  the    smoke   of    myrrh   and 

frankincense ; 

Bend  down  and  pray  for  the  great  sin  I  wove 

in  song, 

55 


Till  Maurya  of  the  wounded  heart  cry  a  sweet 

cry, 
And  call  to  my  beloved  and  me:  'No  longer 

fly 
'Amid     the    hovering,     piteous,     penitential 

throng. ' 


56 


AEDH    PLEADS   WITH   THE 
ELEMENTAL   POWERS 

The  Powers  whose  name  and  shape  no  living 

creature  knows 
Have  pulled  the  Immortal  Rose; 
And  though  the  Seven  Lights  bowed  in  their 

dance  and  wept, 
The  Polar  Dragon  slept, 
His    heavy    rings    uncoiled   from    glimmering 

deep  to  deep: 
When  will  he  wake  from  sleep? 

Great   Powers   of  falling   wave  and  wind  and 
windy  fire, 

With  your  harmonious  choir 

57 


Encircle  her  I  love  and  sing  her  into  peace, 

That  my  old  care  may  cease; 

Unfold   your   flaming  wings  and  cover  out  of 

sight 
The  nets  of  day  and  night. 

Dim    Powers   of  drowsy  thought,   let   her  no 

longer  be 
Like  the  pale  cup  of  the  sea, 
When  winds  have  gathered  and  sun  and  moon 

burned  dim 
Above  its  cloudy  rim; 
But  let  a  gentle  silence  wrought  with  music 

flow 
Whither  her  footsteps  go. 


53 


AEDH   WISHES  HIS   BELOVED  WERE 
DEAD 

Were  you  but  lying  cold  and  dead, 

And  lights  were  paling  out  of  the  West, 

You  would  come  hither,  and  bend  your  head, 

And  I  would  lay  my  head  on  your  breast; 

And  you  would  murmur  tender  words, 

Forgiving  me,  because  you  were  dead : 

Nor  would  you  rise  and  hasten  away, 

Though  you  have  the  will  of  the  wild  birds, 

But  know  your  hair  was  bound  and  wound 

About  the  stars  and  moon  and  sun : 

O  would  beloved  that  you  lay 

Under  the  dock-leaves  in  the  ground, 

While  lights  were  paling  one  by  one. 

59 


AEDH  WISHES  FOR  THE  CLOTHS 
OF  HEAVEN 

Had  I  the  heavens'  embroidered  cloths, 
Enwrought  with  golden  and  silver  light, 
The  blue  and  the  dim  and  the  dark  cloths 
Of  night  and  light  and  the  half  light, 
I  would  spread  the  cloths  under  your  feet  : 
But  I,  being  poor,  have  only  my  dreams; 
I  have  spread  my  dreams  under  your  feet ; 
Tread  softly  because  you  tread  on  my  dreams. 


60 


MONGAN  THINKS    OF   HIS   PAST 
GREATNESS 

I  have  drunk  ale  from   the  Country  of   the 

Young 
And  weep  because  I  know  all  things  now: 
I  have  been  a  hazel  tree  and  they  hung 
The  Pilot  Star  and  the  Crooked  Plough 
Among  my  leaves  in  times  out  of  mind: 
I  became  a  rush  that  horses  tread : 
I  became  a  man,  a  hater  of  the  wind, 
Knowing  one,  out  of  all  things,  alone,  that  his 

head 

61 


Would  not  lie  on  the  breast  or  his  lips  on  the 

hair 
Of  the  woman  that  he  loves,  until  he  dies; 
Although  the  rushes  and  the  fowl  of  the  air 
Cry  of  his  love  with  their  pitiful  cries. 


62 


NOTES 


The  Hosting  of  the  Sidhe. 

The  powerful  and  wealthy  called  the  gods  of 
ancient  Ireland  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan,  or  the 
Tribes  of  the  goddess  Danu,  but  the  poor  called 
them,  and  still  sometimes  call  them,  the  Sidhe, 
from  Aes  Sidhe  or  Sluagh  Sidhe,  the  people 
of  the  Faery  HiUs,  as  these  words  are  usually 
explained.  Sidhe  is  also  Gaelic  for  wind,  and 
certainly  the  Sidhe  have  much  to  do  with  the 
wind.  They  journey  in  whirling  winds,  the 
winds  that  were  called  the  dance  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Herodias  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Hero- 
dias  doubtless  taking  the  place  of  some  old 
goddess.  When  the  country  people  see  the 
5  65 


leaves  whirling  on  the  road  they  bless  them- 
selves, because  they  believe  the  Sidhe  to  be 
passing  by.  They  are  almost  always  said  to 
wear  no  covering  upon  their  heads,  and  to  let 
their  hair  stream  out;  and  the  great  among 
them,  for  they  have  great  and  simple,  go  much 
upon  horseback.  If  any  one  becomes  too  much 
interested  in  them,  and  sees  them  over  much, 
he  loses  all  interest  in  ordinary  things.  I 
shall  write  a  great  deal  elsewhere  about  such 
enchanted  persons,  and  can  give  but  an  exam- 
ple or  two  now. 

A  woman  near  Gort,  in  Galway,  says : 
'  There  is  a  boy,  now,  of  the  Cloran's;  but  I 
would  n't  for  the  world  let  them  think  I  spoke 
of  him;  it's  two  years  since  he  came  from 
America,  and  since  that  time  he  never  went  to 
Mass,  or  to  church,  or  to  fairs,  or  to  market, 
or  to  stand  on  the  cross  roads,  or  to  hurling, 

or  to  nothing.     And  if  any  one  comes  into  the 

66 


house,  it 's  into  the  room  he  '11  slip,  not  to  see 

them ;  and  as  to  work,  he  has  the  garden  dug 

to  bits,  and  the  whole  place  smeared  with  cow 

dung;  and  such  a  crop  as  was  neVer  seen;  and 

the   alders   all    plaited   till    they  look   grand= 

One  day  he  went  as  far  as  the  chapel ;  but  as 

soon  as  he  got  to  the  door  he  turned   straight 

round  again,  as  if  he  hadn't  power  to  pass  it. 

I  wonder  he  would  n't  get  the  priest  to  read  a 

Mass  for  him,  or  something;  but  the  crop  he 

has  is  grand,  and  you  may  know  well  he  has 

some  to  help  him.'      One  hears  many  stories 

of  the  kind;  and  a  man  whose  son  is  believed 

to  go  out  riding  among  them  at  night  tells  me 

that  he  is  careless  about  everything,  and  lies 

in  bed  until  it  is  late  in  the  day.     A  doctor 

believes  this  boy  to  be  mad.     Those  that  are 

at   times    'away,'    as    it    is    called,    know   all 

things,  but  are  afraid  to  speak.     A  countryman 

at    Kiltartan    says>    '  There   was    one   of    the 

67 


Lydons  —  John  —  was   away   for  seven   years, 

lying  in  his  bed,  but  brought  away  at  nights, 

and  he  knew  everything;    and  one,   Kearney, 

up  in  the  mountains,  a  cousin  of  his  own,  lost 

two   hoggets,   and  came  and  told  him,  and  he 

knew  the  very  spot  where  they  were,  and  told 

him,  and  he  got  them  back  again.     But  they 

were  vexed  at  that,  and  took  away  the  power, 

so  that  he  never  knew  anything  again,  no  more 

than  another. '     This  wisdom  is  the  wisdom  of 

the  fools  of  the  Celtic  stories,  that  was  above 

all  the  wisdom  of  the  wise.     Lomna,  the  fool 

of  Fiann,  had  so  great  wisdom  that  his  head, 

cut  from  his  body,  was  still  able  to  sing  and 

prophesy;  and  a  writer  in  the  'Encyclopaedia 

Britannica '  writes  that  Tristram,  in  the  oldest 

form  of  the  tale  of  Tristram  and  Iseult,  drank 

wisdom,  and  madness  the  shadow  of  wisdom, 

and  not  love,  out  of  the  magic  cup. 

The  great  of  the  old  times  are  among   the 

6$ 


Tribes   of   Danu,   and   are   kings   and   queens 

among    them.       Caolte   was   a   companion    of 

Fiann;  and  years  after  his  death  he  appeared 

to  a  king  in  a  forest,  and  was  a  flaming  man, 

that  he  might  lead  him  in  the  darkness.     When 

the  king  asked  him  who  he  was,  he  said,  *  I  am 

your  candlestick.'     I  do  not  remember  where 

I  have  read  this  story,  and  I  have,  maybe,  half 

forgotten  it.     Niam  was  a  beautiful  woman  of 

the   Tribes  of   Danu,    that    led    Oisin   to   the 

Country   of   the   Young,    as   their   country    is 

called;    I    have   written   about    her    in    'The 

Wandering  of    Usheen;'    and   he  came  back, 

at  last,  to  bitterness  and  weariness. 

Knocknarea    is    in    Sligo,   and   the   country 

people  say  that  Maeve,  still  a  great  queen  of 

the  western   Sidhe,   is  buried  in  the   cairn  of 

stones  upon  it.     I  have  written  of  Clooth-na- 

Bare  in   '  The  Celtic  Twilight.  *      She  '  went 

all  over  the  world,  seeking  a  lake  deep  enough 

69 


to  drown  her  faery  life,  of  which  she  had  grown 
weary,  leaping  from  hill  to  hill,  and  setting  up 
a  cairn  of  stones  wherever  her  feet  lighted, 
until,  at  last,  she  found  the  deepest  water  in 
the  world  in  little  Lough  la,  on  the  top  of  the 
bird  mountain,  in  Sligo. '  I  forget,  now, 
where  I  heard  this  story,  but  it  may  have  been 
from  a  priest  at  Collooney.  Clooth-na-Bare 
would  mean  the  old  woman  of  Bare,  but  is 
evidently  a  corruption  of  Cailleac  Bare,  the  old 
woman  Bare,  who,  under  the  names  Bare,  and 
Berah,  and  Beri,  and  Verah,  and  Dera,  and 
Dhira,  appears  in  the  legends  of  many  places. 
Mr.  O' Grady  found  her  haunting  Lough  Liath 
high  up  on  the  top  of  a  mountain  of  the  Fews, 
the  Slieve  Fuadh,  or  Slieve  G-Cullain  of  old 
times,  under  the  name  of  the  Cailleac  Buillia. 
He  describes  Lough  Liath  as  a  desolate  moon- 
shaped  lake,  with  made  wells  and  sunken  pas- 
sages upon  its  borders,  and  beset  by  marsh  and 


heather  and  gray  boulders,  and  closes  his 
1  Flight  of  the  Eagle  '  with  a  long  rhapsody 
upon  mountain  and  lake,  because  of  the  heroic 
tales  and  beautiful  old  myths  that  have  hung 
about  them  always.  He  identifies  the  Cailleac 
Buillia  with  that  Meluchra  who  persuaded 
Fionn  to  go  to  her  amid  the  waters  of  Lough 
Liath,  and  so  changed  him  with  her  enchant- 
ments, that,  though  she  had  to  free  him  because 
of  the  threats  of  the  Fiana,  his  hair  was  ever 
afterwards  as  white  as  snow.  To  this  day  the 
Tribes  of  the  Goddess  Danu  that  are  in  the 
waters  beckon  to  men,  and  drown  them  in  the 
waters;  and  Bare,  or  Dhira,  or  Meluchra,  or 
whatever  name  one  likes  the  best,  is,  doubt 
less,  the  name  of  a  mistress  among  them. 
Meluchra  was  daughter  of  Cullain;  and  Cullain 
Mr.  O' Grady  calls,  upon  I  know  not  what 
authority,  a  form  of  Lir,  the  master  of  waters. 
The  people  of  the  waters  have  been  in  all  ages 

7i 


beautiful  and  changeable  and  lascivious,  or 
beautiful  and  wise  and  lonely,  for  water  is 
everywhere  the  signature  of  the  fruitfulness  of 
the  body  and  of  the  fruitfulness  of  dreams. 
The  white  hair  of  Fionn  may  be  but  another  of 
the  troubles  of  those  that  come  to  unearthly 
wisdom  and  earthly  trouble,  and  the  threats 
and  violence  of  the  Fiana  against  her,  a  differ- 
ent form  of  the  threats  and  violence  the  coun- 
try people  use,  to  make  the  Tribes  of  Danu  give 
up  those  that  are  '  away. '  Bare  is  now  often 
called  an  ugly  old  woman;  but  Dr.  Joyce  says 
that  one  of  her  old  names  was  Aebhin,  which 
means  beautiful.  Aebhen  was  the  goddess  of 
the  tribes  of  northern  Leinster;  and  the  lover 
she  had  made  immortal,  and  who  loved  her 
perfectly,  left  her,  and  put  on  mortality,  to 
fight  among  them  against  the  stranger,  and 
died  on  the  strand  of  Clontarf. 


72 


'  AEDH, '    '  HANRAHAN  '    AND    '  MICHAEL 
ROBARTES  '    IN  THESE   POEMS. 

These  are  personages  in  *  The  Secret  Rose; ' 
but,  with  the  exception  of  some  of  Hanrahan's 
and  one  of  Aedh's  poems,  the  poems  are  not 
out  of  that  book.  I  have  used  them  in  this 
book  more  as  principles  of  the  mind  than  as 
actual  personages.  It  is  probable  that  only 
students  of  the  magical  tradition  will  under- 
stand me  when  I  say  that  '  Michael  Robartes ' 
is  fire  reflected  in  water,  and  that  Hanrahan 
is  fire  blown  by  the  wind,  and  that  Aedh, 
whose  name  is  not  merely  the  Irish  form  of 
Hugh,  but  the  Irish  for  fire,  is  fire  burning  by 
itself.  To  put  it  in  a  different  way,  Hanrahan 
is  the  simplicity  of  an  imagination  too  change- 
able to  gather  permanent  possessions,  or  the 
adoration    of     the    shepherds;     and     Michael 

73 


Robartes  is  the  pride  of  the  imagination  brood- 
ing upon  the  greatness  of  its  possessions,  or 
the  adoration  of  the  Magi ;  while  Aedh  is  the 
myrrh  and  frankincense  that  the  imagination 
offers  continually  before  all  that  it  loves. 


Aedh  pleads  with  the  Elemental  Powers, 
mongan  thinks  of  his  past  greatness. 
Aedh  hears  the  Cry  of  the  Sedge. 

The  Rose  has  been  for  many  centuries  a  sym- 
bol of  spiritual  love  and  supreme  beauty.  The 
Count  Goblet  D'Alviella  thinks  that  it  was 
once  a  symbol  of  the  sun,  —  itself  a  principal 
symbol  of  the  divine  nature,  and  the  sym- 
bolic heart  of  things.  The  lotus  was  in  some 
Eastern  countries  imagined  blossoming  upon 
the  Tree  of  Life,  as  the  Flower  of  Life,  and 
is   thus   represented    in    Assyrian    bas-reliefs. 

74 


Because  the  Rose,  the  flower  sacred  to  the 
Virgin  Mary,  and  the  flower  that  Apuleius' 
adventurer  ate,  when  he  was  changed  out  of 
the  ass's  shape  and  received  into  the  fellow- 
ship of  Isis,  is  the  western  Flower  of  Life,  I 
have  imagined  it  growing  upon  the  Tree  of 
Life.  I  once  stood  beside  a  man  in  Ireland 
when  he  saw  it  growing  there  in  a  vision,  that 
seemed  to  have  rapt  him  out  of  his  body. 
He  saw  the  garden  of  Eden  walled  about,  and 
on  the  top  of  a  high  mountain,  as  in  certain 
mediaeval  diagrams,  and  after  passing  the  Tree 
of  Knowledge,  on  which  grew  fruit  full  of 
troubled  faces,  and  through  whose  branches 
flowed,  he  was  told,  sap  that  was  human  souls, 
he  came  to  a  tall,  dark  tree,  with  little  bitter 
fruits,  and  was  shown  a  kind  of  stair  or  ladder 
going  up  through  the  tree,  and  told  to  go  up; 
and  near  the  top  of  the  tree,  a  beautiful  woman, 
like  the  Goddess  of  Life  associated  with  the 

75 


tree  in  Assyria,  gave  him  a  rose  that  seemed  to 
have  been  growing  upon  the  tree.  One  finds 
the  Rose  in  the  Irish  poets,  sometimes  as  a 
religious  symbol,  as  in  the  phrase,  '  the  Rose 
of  Friday,'  meaning  the  Rose  of  austerity,  in  a 
Gaelic  poem  in  Dr.  Hyde's  '  Religious  Songs 
of  Connacht;'  and,  I  think,  as  a  symbol  of 
woman's  beauty  in  the  Gaelic  song,  '  Roseen 
Dubh;'  and  a  symbol  of  Ireland  in  Mangan's 
adaptation  of  '  Roseen  Dubh, '  '  My  Dark  Rosa- 
leen,'  and  in  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere's  'The 
Little  Black  Rose.'  I  do  not  know  any  evi- 
dence to  prove  whether  this  symbol  came  to 
Ireland  with  mediaeval  Christianity,  or  whether 
it  has  come  down  from  Celtic  times.  I  have 
read  somewhere  that  a  stone  engraved  with  a 
Celtic  god,  who  holds  what  looks  like  a  rose 
in  one  hand,  has  been  found  somewhere  in 
England;    but    I    cannot    find   the    reference, 

though  I  certainly  made  a  note  of  it.     If  the 

76 


Rose  was  really  a  symbol  of  Ireland  among  the 
Gaelic  poets,  and  if  '  Roseen  Dubh '  is  really  a 
political  poem,  as  some  think,  one  may  feel 
pretty  certain  that  the  ancient  Celts  associated 
the  Rose  with  Eire,  or  Fotla,  or  Banba — 
goddesses  who  gave  their  names  to  Ireland  — 
or  with  some  principal  god  or  goddess,  for  such 
symbols  are  not  suddenly  adopted  or  invented, 
but  come  out  of  mythology. 

I  have  made  the  Seven  Lights,  the  constel- 
lation of  the  Bear,  lament  for  the  theft  of  the 
Rose,  and  I  have  made  the  Dragon,  the  con- 
stellation  Draco,  the  guardian  of  the  Rose,  be- 
cause these  constellations  move  about  the  pole 
of  the  heavens,  the  ancient  Tree  of  Life  in 
many  countries,  and  are  often  associated  with 
the  Tree  of  Life  in  mythology.  It  is  this 
Tree  of  Life  that  I  have  put  into  the  '  Song 
of  Mongan  '  under  its  common  Irish  form  of 
a   hazel;   and,   because  it  had    sometimes   the 

77 


stars  for  fruit,  I  have  hung  upon  it  '  the 
Crooked  Plough  '  and  the  '  Pilot '  star,  as 
Gaelic-speaking  Irishmen  sometimes  call  the 
Bear  and  the  North  star.  I  have  made  it  an 
axle-tree  in  *  Aedh  hears  the  Cry  of  the  Sedge,' 
for  this  was  another  ancient  way  of  represent- 
ing it. 

The  Host  of  the  Air. 

Some  writers  distinguish  between  the  Sluagh 
Gaoith,  the  host  of  the  air,  and  Sluagh  Sidhe, 
the  host  of  the  Sidhe,  and  describe  the  host  of 
the  air  as  of  a  peculiar  malignancy.  Dr.  Joyce 
says,  *  of  all  the  different  kinds  of  goblins  .  .  . 
air  demons  were  most  dreaded  by  the  people. 
They  lived  among  clouds,  and  mists,  and  rocks, 
and  hated  the  human  race  with  the  utmost 
malignity.'  A  very  old  Arann  charm,  which 
contains  the  words  '  Send  God,  by  his  strength, 

78 


between  us  and  the  host  of  the  Sidhe,  between 
us  and  the  host  of  the  air,'  seems  also  to  dis- 
tinguish among  them.  I  am  inclined,  how- 
ever, to  think  that  the  distinction  came  in 
with  Christianity  and  its  belief  about  the 
prince  of  the  air,  for  the  host  of  the  Sidhe,  as  I 
have  already  explained,  are  closely  associated 
with  the  wind. 

They  are  said  to  steal  brides  just  after  their 
marriage,  and  sometimes  in  a  blast  of  wind. 
A  man  in  Galway  says,  '  At  Aughanish  there 
were  two  couples  came  to  the  shore  to  be  mar- 
ried, and  one  of  the  newly  married  women  was 
in  the  boat  with  the  priest,  and  they  going  back 
to  the  island ;  and  a  sudden  blast  of  wind  came, 
and  the  priest  said  some  blessed  words  that  were 
able  to  save  himself,  but  the  girl  was  swept. ' 

This  woman  was  drowned;  but  more  often 
the  persons  who  are  taken  '  get  the  touch,'  as  it 
is  called,  and  fall  into  a  half  dream,  and  grow 

79 


indifferent  to  all  things,  for  their  true  life  has 

gone  out  of  the  world,  and  is  among  the  hills 

and  the  forts  of  the  Sidhe.     A  faery  doctor  has 

told  me  that  his  wife  '  got  the  touch  '  at  her 

marriage  because  there  was  one  of  them  wanted 

her;  and  the  way  he  knew  for  certain  was,  that 

when  he  took  a  pitchfork  out  of   the   rafters, 

and  told  her  it  was  a  broom,  she  said,  *  It  is  a 

broom.'     She  was,  the  truth  is,  in  the  magical 

sleep,  to  which  people  have  given  a  new  name 

lately,  that  makes  the  imagination  so  passive 

that  it  can  be  moulded  by  any  voice    in    any 

world    into   any  shape.     A    mere    likeness    of 

some  old  woman,  or  even  old  animal,  some  one 

or  some  thing  the  Sidhe  have  no  longer  a  use 

for,  is  believed  to  be  left  instead  of  the  person 

who  is   'away;'  this  some  one  or  some  thing 

can,  it  is  thought,  be  driven  away  by  threats, 

or   by  violence  (though  I  have  heard  country 

women    say   that    violence   is   wrong),    which 

80 


perhaps   awakes   the   soul   out  of   the  magical 
sleep.     The  story  in  the  poem  is  founded  on 
an  old  Gaelic  ballad  that  was  sung  and  trans- 
lated  for   me   by  a  woman    at    Bailisodare  in 
County  Sligo;  but  in  the  ballad  the  husband 
found  the  keeners  keening  his  wife  when  he  eot 
to  his  house.      She  was  '  swept '  at  once ;  but 
the   Sidhe  are   said   to  value   those  the  most 
whom  they  but  cast  into  a  half  dream,  which 
may  last  for  years,  for  they  need  the  help  of  a 
living  person  in  most  of   the  things  they  do. 
There  are  many  stories  of  people  who  seem  to 
die  and  be  buried  — though  the  country  people 
will    tell    you    it    is   but    some    one   or  some 
thing    put    in    their    place    that    dies   and    is 
buried  —  and  yet  are  brought  back  afterwards. 
These  tales  are  perhaps  memories  of  true  awak- 
enings out  of  the  magical  sleep,   moulded  by 
the  imagination,  under  the  influence  of  a  mysti- 
cal doctrine  which  it  understands  too  literally, 
6  81 


into  the  shape  of  some  well-known  traditional 
tale.  One  does  not  hear  them  as  one  hears 
the  others,  from  the  persons  who  are  'away,'  or 
from  their  wives  or  husbands ;  and  one  old 
man,  who  had  often  seen  the  Sidhe,  began  one 
of  them  with  '  Maybe  it  is  all  vanity. ' 

Here  is  a  tale  that  a  friend  of  mine  heard  in 
the  Burren  hills,  and  it  is  a  type  of  all:  — 

'  There    was  a  girl   to  be  married,   and  she 

did  n't  like  the  man,  and  she  cried  when  the 

day  was   coming,   and    said    she    would  n't    go 

along  with  him.      And  the  mother  said,  "  Get 

into   the  bed,  then,   and  I  '11  say  that  you  're 

sick. "     And  so  she  did.      And  when  the  man 

came  the  mother  said  to  him,  "You  can't  get 

her,  she  's  sick  in  the  bed."     And  he  looked  in 

and  said,  "That  's  not  my  wife  that  's  in  the 

bed,    it  's    some   old   hag."     And  the    mother 

began   to  cry  and  to  roar.     And  he  went  out 

and  got  two  hampers  of  turf,  and  made  a  fire, 

S2 


that  they  thought  he  was    going  to  burn    the 
house  down.     And  when  the  fire  was  kindled, 
"Come  out  now,"  says  he,  "and  we'll  see  who 
you  are,  when  I  '11  put  you  on  the  fire."     And 
when  she  heard  that,   she  gave  one  leap,  and 
was  out  of  the  house,   and  they  saw,  then,   it 
was  an  old  hag  she  was.     Well,  the  man  asked 
the  advice  of  an  old  woman,  and  she  bid  him 
go  to  a  faery-bush  that  was  near,  and  he  might 
get  some  word  of  her.      So  he  went  there  at 
night,  and  saw  all  sorts  of  grand  people,  and 
they    in    carriages    or   riding    on    horses,    and 
among  them  he  could  see  the  girl  he  came  to 
look  for.      So  he  went  again  to  the  old  woman, 
and  she  said,  "  If  you  can  get  the  three  bits  of 
blackthorn    out    of   her   hair,    you  '11    get    her 
again."      So    that   night   he  went   again,   and 
that  time  he  only  got  hold  of  a  bit  of  her  hair. 
Eut  the  old  woman  told  him  that  was  no  use, 
and  that  he  was  put  back  now,  and  it  might  be 

83 


twelve  nights  before  he  'd  get  her.  But  on  the 
fourth  night  he  got  the  third  bit  of  blackthorn, 
and  he  took  her,  and  she  came  away  with  him. 
He  never  told  the  mother  he  had  got  her;  but 
one  day  she  saw  her  at  a  fair,  and,  says  she, 
"That 's  my  daughter;  I  know  her  by  the  smile 
and  by  the  laugh  of  her,"  and  she  with  a  shawl 
about  her  head.  So  the  husband  said,  "  You  're 
right  there,  and  hard  I  worked  to  get  her." 
She  spoke  often  of  the  grand  things  she  saw 
underground,  and  how  she  used  to  have  wine 
to  drink,  and  to  drive  out  in  a  carriage  with 
four  horses  every  night.  And  she  used  to  be 
able  to  see  her  husband  when  he  came  to  look 
for  her,  and  she  was  greatly  afraid  he  'd  get  a 
drop  of  the  wine,  for  then  he  would  have  come 
underground  and  never  left  it  again.  And 
she  was  glad  herself  to  come  to  earth  again, 
and  not  to  be  left  there. ' 

The  old  Gaelic  literature  is  full  of  the  ap- 

84 


peals  of  the  Tribes  of  the  goddess  Danu  to 
mortals  whom  they  would  bring  into  their 
country;  but  the  song  of  Midher  to  the  beau- 
tiful Etain,  the  wife  of  the  king  who  was 
called  Echaid  the  ploughman,  is  the  type 
of  all. 

1  O  beautiful  woman,  come  with  me  to  the 
marvellous  land  where  one  listens  to  a  sweet 
music,  where  one  has  spring  flowers  in  one's 
hair,  where  the  body  is  like  snow  from  head  to 
foot,  where  no  one  is  sad  or  silent,  where  teeth 
are  white  and  eyebrows  are  black  .  .  .  cheeks 
red  like  foxglove  in  flower.  .  .  .  Ireland  is 
beautiful,  but  not  so  beautiful  as  the  Great 
Plain  I  call  you  to.  The  beer  of  Ireland  is 
heady,  but  the  beer  of  the  Great  Plain  is  much 
more  heady.  How  marvellous  is  the  country  I 
am  speaking  of !  Youth  does  not  grow  old 
there.  Streams  with  warm  flood  flow  there; 
sometimes  mead,  sometimes  wine.      Men   are 

85 


charming  and  without  a  blot  there,  and  love  is 
not  forbidden  there.  O  woman,  when  you 
come  into  my  powerful  country  you  will  wear  a 
crown  of  gold  upon  your  head.  I  will  give  you 
the  flesh  of  swine,  and  you  will  have  beer  and 
milk  to  drink,  O  beautiful  woman.  O  beau- 
tiful woman,  come  with  me ! ' 

A  Cradle  Song. 

Michael  Robartes  asks  Forgiveness  be- 
cause OF  HIS  MANY  MOODS. 

I  use  the  wind  as  a  symbol  of  vague  desires 

and  hopes,  not  merely  because  the  Sidhe  are  in 

the  wind,   or  because  the  wind   bloweth  as  it 

listeth,  but  because  wind  and  spirit  and  vague 

desire    have   been   associated   everywhere.     A 

highland    scholar    tells    me   that   his    country 

people  use  the  wind  in  their  talk  and  in  their 

proverbs  as  I  use  it  in  my  poem. 

86 


The  Song  of  Wandering  Aengus. 

The  Tribes  of  the  goddess  Darm  can  take  all 
shapes,  and  those  that  are  in  the  waters  take 
often  the  shape  of  fish.  A  woman  of  Burren, 
in  Galway,  says,  '  There  are  more  of  them  in 
the  sea  than  on  the  land,  and  they  sometimes 
try  to  come  over  the  side  of  the  boat  in  the 
form  of  fishes,  for  they  can  take  their  choice 
shape.'  At  other  times  they  are  beautiful 
women;  and  another  Galway  woman  says, 
'  Surely  those  things  are  in  the  sea  as  well  as 
on  land.  My  father  was  out  fishing  one  night 
off  Tyrone.  And  something  came  beside  the 
boat  that  had  eyes  shining  like  candles.  And 
then  a  wave  came  in,  and  a  storm  rose  all  in  a 
minute,  and  whatever  was  in  the  wave,  the 
weight  of  it  had  like  to  sink  the  boat.  And 
then  they  saw  that  it  was  a  woman  in  the  sea 

87 


that  had  the  shining  eyes.  So  my  father  went 
to  the  priest,  and  he  bid  him  always  to  take  a 
drop  of  holy  water  and  a  pinch  of  salt  out  in 
the  boat  with  him,  and  nothing  could  harm 
him.' 

The  poem  was  suggested  to  me  by  a  Greek 
folk  song;  but  the  folk  belief  of  Greece  is  very 
like  that  of  Ireland,  and  I  certainly  thought, 
when  I  wrote  it,  of  Ireland,  and  of  the  spirits 
that  are  in  Ireland.  An  old  man  who  was  cut- 
ting a  quickset  hedge  near  Gort,  in  Galway, 
said,  only  the  other  day,  '  One  time  I  was  cut- 
ting timber  over  in  Inchy,  and  about  eight 
o'clock  one  morning,  when  I  got  there,  I  saw 
a  girl  picking  nuts,  with  her  hair  hanging  down 
over  her  shoulders;  brown  hair;  and  she  had 
a  good,  clean  face,  and  she  was  tall,  and  noth- 
ing on  her  head,  and  her  dress  no  way  gaudy, 
but    simple.     And  when  she  felt   me   coming 

she  gathered  herself  up,  and  was   gone,  as  if 

88 


the  earth  had  swallowed  her  up.  And  I  fol- 
lowed her,  and  looked  for  her,  but  I  never 
could  see  her  again  from  that  day  to  this,  never 
again. ' 

The   county   Galway   people   use   the  word 
'  clean  '  in  its  old  sense  of  fresh  and  comely. 

Michael  Robartes  bids  his  Beloved  be 
at  Peace. 

November,  the  old  beginning  of  winter,  or 
of  the  victory  of  the  Fomor,  or  powers  of  death, 
and  dismay,  and  cold,  and  darkness,  is  asso- 
ciated by  the  Irish  people  with  the  horse- 
shaped  Pucas,  who  are  now  mischievous  spirits, 
but  were  once  Fomorian  divinities.  I  think 
that  they  may  have  some  connection  with  the 
horses  of  Mannannan,  who  reigned  over  the 
country  of  the  dead,  where  the  Fomorian 
Tethra  reigned  also;  and  the  horses  of  Man- 

89 


nannan,  though  they  could  cross  the  land  as 
easily  as  the  sea,  are  constantly  associated  with 
the  waves.  Some  neo-platonist,  I  forget  who, 
describes  the  sea  as  a  symbol  of  the  drifting 
indefinite  bitterness  of  life,  and  I  believe  there 
is  like  symbolism  intended  in  the  many  Irish 
voyages  to  the  islands  of  enchantment,  or  that 
there  was,  at  any  rate,  in  the  mythology  out  of 
which  these  stories  have  been  shaped.  I  follow 
much  Irish  and  other  mythology,  and  the 
magical  tradition,  in  associating  the  North 
with  night  and  sleep,  and  the  East,  the  place 
of  sunrise,  with  hope,  and  the  South,  the  place 
of  the  sun  when  at  its  height,  with  passion  and 
desire,  and  the  West,  the  place  of  sunset,  with 
fading  and  dreaming  things. 


90 


MONGAN  LAMENTS  THE  CHANGE  THAT  HAS 
COME  UPON   HIM  AND   HIS   BELOVED. 

HANRAHAN  LAMENTS  BECAUSE  OF  HIS  WAN- 
DERINGS. 

My  deer  and  hound  are  properly  related  to 
the  deer  and  hound  that  flicker  in  and  out  of 
the  various  tellings  of  the  Arthurian  legends, 
leading  different  knights  upon  adventures,  and 
to  the  hounds  and  to  the  hornless  deer  at  the 
beginning  of,  I  think,  all  tellings  of  Oisin's 
journey  to  the  country  of  the  young.  The 
hound  is  certainly  related  to  the  Hounds  of 
Annwvyn  or  of  Hades,  who  are  white,  and  have 
red  ears,  and  were  heard,  and  are,  perhaps,  still 
heard  by  Welsh  peasants  following  some  fly- 
ing thing  in  the  night  winds ;  and  is  probably 
related  to  the  hounds  that  Irish  country  people 
believe  will  awake  and  seize  the  souls  of  the 
dead  if  you  lament  them  too  loudly  or  too  soon, 

9i 


and  to  the  hound  the  son  of  Setanta  killed,  on 
what  was  certainly,  in  the  first  form  of  the  tale, 
a  visit  to  the  Celtic  Hades.  An  old  woman 
told  a  friend  and  myself  that  she  saw  what  she 
thought  were  white  birds,  flying  over  an  en- 
chanted place,  but  found,  when  she  got  near, 
that  they  had  dog's  heads;  and  I  do  not  doubt 
that  my  hound  and  these  dog-headed  birds  are 
of  the  same  family.  I  got  my  hound  and  deer 
out  of  a  last  century  Gaelic  poem  about 
Oisin's  journey  to  the  country  of  the  young. 
After  the  hunting  of  the  hornless  deer,  that 
leads  him  to  the  seashore,  and  while  he  is  rid- 
ing over  the  sea  with  Niam,  he  sees  amid  the 
waters  —  I  have  not  the  Gaelic  poem  by  me, 
and  describe  it  from  memory  —  a  young  man 
following  a  girl  who  has  a  golden  apple,  and 
afterwards  a  hound  with  one  red  ear  following 
a  deer  with  no  horns.      This   hound  and  this 

deer  seem  plain  images  of  the  desire  of  man 

92 


'  which  is  for  the  woman,'  and  '  the  desire  of 
the  woman  which  is  for  the  desire  of  the 
man,'  and  of  all  desires  that  are  as  these. 
I  have  read  them  in  this  way  in  *  The  Wander- 
ings of  Usheen '  or  Oisin,  and  have  made 
my  lover  sigh  because  he  has  seen  in  their 
faces  'the  immortal  desire  of  immortals.'  A 
solar  mythologist  would  perhaps  say  that  the 
girl  with  the  golden  apple  was  once  the  win- 
ter, or  night,  carrying  the  sun  away,  and 
the  deer  without  horns,  like  the  boar  without 
bristles,  darkness  flying  the  light.  He  would 
certainly,  I  think,  say  that  when  Cuchullain, 
whom  Professor  Rhys  calls  a  solar  hero, 
hunted  the  enchanted  deer  of  Slieve  Fuadh, 
because  the  battle  fury  was  still  on  him, 
he  was  the  sun  pursuing  clouds,  or  cold,  or 
darkness.  I  have  understood  them  in  this 
sense  in  '  Hanrahan  laments  because  of  his 
wandering,'  and  made  Hanrahan  long  for  the 

93 


day  when  they,  fragments  of  ancestral  dark- 
ness, will  overthrow  the  world.  The  desire  of 
the  woman,  the  flying  darkness,  it  is  all  one! 
The  image  —  across,  a  man  preaching  in  the 
wilderness,  a  dancing  Salome,  a  lily  in  a  girl's 
hand,  a  flame  leaping,  a  globe  with  wings,  a 
pale  sunset  over  still  waters  —  is  an  eternal  act ; 
but  our  understandings  are  temporal  and 
understand  but  a  little  at  a  time. 

The  man  in  my  poem  who  has  a  hazel  wand 
may  have  been  Aengus,  Master  of  Love;  and 
I  have  made  the  boar  without  bristles  come 
out  of  the  West,  because  the  place  of  sunset 
was  in  Ireland,  as  in  other  countries,  a  place 
of  symbolic  darkness  and  death. 

The  Cap  and  Bells. 

I  dreamed  this  story  exactly  as  I  have  writ- 
ten it,  and  dreamed  another  long  dream  after 

94 


it,  trying  to  make  out  its  meaning,  and  whether 
I  was  to  write  it  in  prose  or  verse.  The  first 
dream  was  more  a  vision  than  a  dream,  for  it 
was  beautiful  and  coherent,  and  gave  me  the 
sense  of  illumination  and  exaltation  that  one 
gets  from  visions,  while  the  second  dream  was 
confused  and  meaningless.  The  poem  has 
always  meant  a  great  deal  to  me,  though,  as  is 
the  way  with  symbolic  poems,  it  has  not  always 
meant  quite  the  same  thing.  Blake  would  have 
said  *  the  authors  are  in  eternity,'  and  I  am 
quite  sure  they  can  only  be  questioned  in 
dreams. 

The  Valley  of  the  Black  Pig. 

All  over  Ireland  there  are  prophecies  of  the 
coming  rout  of  the  enemies  of  Ireland,  in  a 
certain  Valley  of  the  Black  Pig,  and  these  pro- 
phecies are,  no  doubt,  now,  as  they  were  in  the 

95 


Fenian  days,  a  political  force.  I  have  heard 
of  one  man  who  would  not  give  any  money 
to  the  Land  League,  because  the  Battle  could 
not  be  until  the  close  of  the  century;  but,  as 
a  rule,  periods  of  trouble  bring  prophecies 
of  its  near  coming.  A  few  years  before  my 
time,  an  old  man  who  lived  at  Lisadell,  in 
Sligo,  used  to  fall  down  in  a  fit  and  rave  out 
descriptions  of  the  Battle;  and  a  man  in  Sligo 
has  told  me  that  it  will  be  so  great  a  battle 
that  the  horses  shall  go  up  to  their  fetlocks  in 
blood,  and  that  their  girths,  when  it  is  over, 
will  rot  from  their  bellies  for  lack  of  a  hand  to 
unbuckle  them.  The  battle  is  a  mythological 
battle,  and  the  black  pig  is  one  with  the  bris- 
tleless  boar,  that  killed  Dearmod,  in  Novem- 
ber, upon  the  western  end  of  Ben  Bulben; 
Misroide  MacDatha's  sow,  whose  carving 
brought  on  so  great  a  battle ;  '  the  croppy  black 

sow, '  and  '  the   cutty  black  sow '    of  Welsh 

96 


November  rhymes  ('  Celtic  Heathendom/  pages 
509-516);  the  boar  that  killed  Adonis;  the 
boar  that  killed  Attis;  and  the  pig  embodi- 
ment of  Typhon  ('Golden  Bough,'  II.  pages 
26,  31).  The  pig  seems  to  have  been  origin- 
ally a  genius  of  the  corn,  and,  seemingly  be- 
cause the  too  great  power  of  their  divinity 
makes  divine  things  dangerous  to  mortals,  its 
flesh  was  forbidden  to  many  eastern  nations; 
but  as  the  meaning  of  the  prohibition  was 
forgotten,  abhorrence  took  the  place  of  rever- 
ence, pigs  and  boars  grew  into  types  of  evil, 
and  were  described  as  the  enemies  of  the  very 
gods  they  once  typified  ('Golden  Bough,'  II. 
26-31,  56-57).  The  Pig  would,  therefore,  be- 
come the  Black  Pig,  a  type  of  cold  and  of  winter 
that  awake  in  November,  the  old  beginning  of 
winter,  to  do  battle  with  the  summer,  and  with 
the  fruit  and  leaves,  and  finally,  as  I  suggest; 
and  as  I  believe,  for  the  purposes  of  poetry; 
7  97 


of  the  darkness  that  will  at  last  destroy  the 
gods  and  the  world.  The  country  people  say 
there  is  no  shape  for  a  spirit  to  take  so  danger- 
ous as  the  shape  of  a  pig ;  and  a  Galway  black- 
smith—  and  blacksmiths  are  thought  to  be 
especially  protected  —  says  he  would  be  afraid 
to  meet  a  pig  on  the  road  at  night ;  and  another 
Galway  man  tells  this  story :  '  There  was  a  man 
coming  the  road  from  Gort  to  Garryland  one 
night,  and  he  had  a  drop  taken;  and  before 
him,  on  the  road,  he  saw  a  pig  walking;  and 
having  a  drop  in,  he  gave  a  shout,  and  made  a 
kick  at  it,  and  bid  it  get  out  of  that.  And  by 
the  time  he  got  home,  his  arm  was  swelled 
from  the  shoulder  to  be  as  big  as  a  bag,  and  he 
could  n't  use  his  hand  with  the  pain  of  it.  And 
his  wife  brought  him,  after  a  few  days,  to  a 
woman  that  used  to  do  cures  at  Rahasane. 
And  on  the  road  all  she  could  do  would  hardly 

keep  him  from  lying  down  to  sleep  on  the  grass. 

98 


And  when  they  got  to  the  woman  she  knew  all 
that  happened;  and,  says  she,  it 's  well  for  you 
that  your  wife  did  n't  let  you  fall  asleep  on  the 
grass,  for  if  you  had  done  that  but  even  for  one 
instant,  you  'd  be  a  lost  man.' 

It  is  possible  that  bristles  were  associated 
with  fertility,  as  the  tail  certainly  was,  for  a 
pig's  tail  is  stuck  into  the  ground  in  Courland, 
that  the  corn  may  grow  abundantly,  and  the 
tails  of  pigs,  and  other  animal  embodiments  of 
the  corn  genius,  are  dragged  over  the  ground 
to  make  it  fertile  in  different  countries.  Pro- 
fessor Rhys,  who  considers  the  bristleless  boar 
a  symbol  of  darkness  and  cold,  rather  than  of 
winter  and  cold,  thinks  it  was  without  bristles 
because  the  darkness  is  shorn  away  by  the  sun. 
It  may  have  had  different  meanings,  just  as  the 
scourging  of  the  man-god  has  had  different 
though  not  contradictory  meanings  in  different 
epochs  of  the  world. 

99 


The  Battle  should,  I  believe,  be  compared 
with  three  other  battles;  a  battle  the  Sidhe 
are  said  to  fight  when  a  person  is  being  taken 
away  by  them ;  a  battle  they  are  said  to  fight 
in  November  for  the  harvest ;  the  great  battle 
the  Tribes  of  the  goddess  Danu  fought,  accord- 
ing to  the  Gaelic  chroniclers,  with  the  Fomor 
at  Moy  Tura,  or  the  Towery  Plain. 

I  have  heard  of  the  battle  over  the  dying  both 
in  County  Galway  and  in  the  Isles  of  Arann, 
an  old  Arann  fisherman  having  told  me  that  it 
was  fought  over  two  of  his  children,  and  that 
he  found  blood  in  a  box  he  had  for  keeping  fish, 
when  it  was  over;  and  I  have  written  about  it, 
and  given  examples  elsewhere.  A  faery  doctor, 
on  the  borders  of  Galway  and  Clare,  explained 
it  as  a  battle  between  the  friends  and  enemies 
of  the  dying,  the  one  party  trying  to  take  them, 
the  other  trying  to  save  them  from  being  taken. 
It  may  once,  when  the  land  of  the  Sidhe  was 

100 


the  only  other  world,  and  when  every  man  who 
died  was  carried  thither,  have  always  accom- 
panied death.  I  suggest  that  the  battle  be- 
tween the  Tribes  of  the  goddess  Danu,  the 
powers  of  light,  and  warmth,  and  fruitfulness, 
and  goodness,  and  the  Fomor,  the  powers  of 
darkness,  and  cold,  and  barrenness,  and  bad- 
ness upon  the  Towery  Plain,  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  habitable  world,  the  rout  of  the 
ancestral  darkness ;  that  the  battle  among  the 
Sidhe  for  the  harvest  is  the  annual  battle  of 
summer  and  winter;  that  the  battle  among  the 
Sidhe  at  a  man's  death  is  the  battle  of  life  and 
death;  and  that  the  battle  of  the  Black  Pig  is 
the  battle  between  the  manifest  world  and  the 
ancestral  darkness  at  the  end  of  all  things; 
and  that  all  these  battles  are  one,  the  battle 
of  all  things  with  shadowy  decay.  Once  a 
symbolism  has  possessed  the  imagination  of 
large  numbers  of  men,  it  becomes,  as  I  believe, 

IOI 


an  embodiment    of   disembodied   powers,   and 
repeats  itself  in  dreams  and  visions,  age  after 


age. 


The  Secret  Rose. 

I  find  that  I  have  unintentionally  changed 
the  old  story  of  Conchobar's  death.  He  did 
not  see  the  crucifixion  in  a  vision,  but  was  told 
about  it.  He  had  been  struck  by  a  ball,  made 
of  the  dried  brain  of  a  dead  enemy,  and  hurled 
out  of  a  sling;  and  this  ball  had  been  left  in 
his  head,  and  his  head  had  been  mended,  the 
Book  of  Leinster  says,  with  thread  of  gold  be- 
cause his  hair  was  like  gold.  Keating,  a  writer 
of  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  says,  '  In  that  state 
did  he  remain  seven  years,  until  the  Friday  on 
which  Christ  was  crucified,  according  to  some 
historians;  and  when  he  saw  the  unusual 
changes  of  the  creation  and  the  eclipse  of  the 
sun   and   the  moon   at   its   full,  he  asked   of 

102 


Bucrach,  a  Leinster  Druid,  who  was  along  with 
him,  what  was  it  that  brought  that  unusual 
change  upon  the  planets  of  Heaven  and  Earth. 
"Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of  God,"  said  the  Druid, 
"who  is  now  being  crucified  by  the  Jews." 
"That  is  a  pity,"  said  Conchobar;  "were  I  in 
his  presence  I  would  kill  those  who  were  put- 
ting him  to  death."  And  with  that  he  brought 
out  his  sword,  and  rushed  at  a  woody  grove 
which  was  convenient  to  him,  and  began  to 
cut  and  fell  it ;  and  what  he  said  was,  that  if 
he  were  among  the  Jews  that  was  the  usage  he 
would  give  them,  and  from  the  excessiveness  of 
his  fury  which  seized  upon  him,  the  ball  started 
out  of  his  head,  and  some  of  the  brain  came 
after  it,  and  in  that  way  he  died.  The  wood 
of  Lanshraigh,  in  Feara  Rois,  is  the  name  by 
which  that  shrubby  wood  is  called. ' 

I  have    imagined  Cuchullain  meeting  Fand 

*  walking  among  flaming  dew.'     The  story  of 

103 


their  love  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  our 

old  tales.     Two   birds,  bound   one  to  another 

with  a  chain  of  gold,  came  to  a  lake  side  where 

Cuchullain  and  the  host  of  Uladh  was  encamped, 

and  sang  so  sweetly  that  all  the  host  fell  into  a 

magic  sleep.      Presently  they  took  the  shape 

of   two  beautiful  women,  and  cast  a  magical 

weakness   upon  Cuchullain,   in  which   he   lay 

for   a  year.     At   the   year's  end  an  Aengus, 

who  was  probably  Aengus  the  master  of  love, 

one   of    the   greatest   of   the   children   of  the 

goddess  Danu,  came  and  sat  upon  his  bedside, 

and  sang  how  Fand,  the  wife  of  Mannannan, 

the  master  of  the  sea,   and  of  the   islands  of 

the  dead,    loved   him;   and   that   if   he  would 

come   into   the   country   of    the    gods,    where 

there   was   wine  and  gold   and   silver,    Fand, 

and  Laban  her  sister,  would  heal  him  of  his 

magical   weakness.       Cuchullain  went   to   the 

country  of  the  gods,  and,  after   being  for  a 

104 


month  the  lover  of  Fand,  made  her  a  promise 
to  meet  her  at  a  place  called  '  the  Yew  at  the 
Strand's  End/  and  came  back  to  the  earth. 
Emer,  his  mortal  wife,  won  his  love  again, 
and  Mannannan  came  to  '  the  Yew  at  the 
Strand's  End,'  and  carried  Fand  away.  When 
Cuchullain  saw  her  going,  his  love  for  her  fell 
upon  him  again,  and  he  went  mad,  and  wan- 
dered among  the  mountains  without  food  or 
drink,  until  he  was  at  last  cured  by  a  Druid 
drink  of  forgetfulness. 

I  have  founded  the  man  '  who  drove  the  gods 
out  of  their  Liss,'  or  fort,  upon  something  I 
have  read  about  Caolte  after  the  battle  of 
Gabra,  when  almost  all  his  companions  were 
killed,  driving  the  gods  out  of  their  Liss, 
either  at  Osraighe,  now  Ossory,  or  at  Eas 
Ruaidh,  now  Asseroe,  a  waterfall  at  Bally- 
shannon,  where    Ilbreac,    one  of   the  children 

of  the  goddess  Danu,  had  a  Liss.     I  am  writ- 

105 


ing  away  from  most  of  my  books,  and  have  not 
been  able  to  find  the  passage;  but  I  certainly 
read  it  somewhere. 

I  have  founded  '  the  proud  dreaming  king  ' 
upon  Fergus,  the  son  of  Roigh,  the  legendary 
poet  of  '  the  quest  of  the  bull  of  Cualge, '  as  he 
is  in  the  ancient  story  of  Deirdre,  and  in 
modern  poems  by  Ferguson.  He  married 
Nessa,  and  Ferguson  makes  him  tell  how  she 
took  him  *  captive  in  a  single  look. ' 

'  I  am  but  an  empty  shade, 
Far  from  life  and  passion  laid  ; 
Yet  does  sweet  remembrance  thrill 
All  my  shadowy  being  still.' 

Presently,  because  of  his  great  love,  he  gave 

up  his  throne  to  Conchobar,  her  son  by  another, 

and  lived  out  his  days  feasting,  and  fighting, 

and  hunting.     His  promise  never  to  refuse  a 

feast  from  a  certain  comrade,  and  the  mischief 

that  came  by  his  promise,  and  the  vengeance 

1 06 


he  took  afterwards,  are  a  principal  theme  of  the 
poets.  I  have  explained  my  imagination  of  him 
in  '  Fergus  and  the  Druid,'  and  in  a  little  song 
in  the  second  act  of  '  The  Countess  Kathleen.' 

I  have  founded  him  '  who  sold  tillage,   and 

house,    and   goods,'  upon   something  in  '  The 

Red    Pony,'    a   folk    tale    in    Mr.    Larminie's 

*  West  Irish  Folk  Tales.'     A  young  man  *  saw 

a  light  before  him  on  the  high  road.     When  he 

came  as  far,  there  was  an  open  box  on  the  road, 

and  a  light  coming  up  out  of  it.      He  took  up 

the   box.       There   was   a    lock   of   hair   in  it. 

Presently  he  had  to  go  to  become  the  servant 

of  a  king  for  his  living.     There  were  eleven 

boys.     When   they   were   going   out    into  the 

stable  at  ten  o'clock,  each  of  them  took  a  light 

but  he.     He  took  no  candle  at  all  with  him. 

Each  of  them  went  into  his  own  stable.     When 

he  went  into    his    stable    he   opened  the  box. 

107 


He  left  it  in  a  hole  in  the  wall.  The  light  was 
great.  It  was  twice  as  much  as  in  the  other 
stables. '  The  king  hears  of  it,  and  makes  him 
show  him  the  box.  The  king  says,  '  You  must 
go  and  bring  me  the  woman  to  whom  the 
hair  belongs.'  In  the  end,  the  young  man, 
and  not  the  king,  marries  the  woman. 


1 08 


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the  WORKS  of  SOME  MODERN  POETS 


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always  on  the  side  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  of  the  oppressed  against  the  oppressor,  if  ever  he  forget 
his  duty  to  his  fellows  the  muse  comes  with  swift  retribution." 

The  Bookman:  "True  metal,  fashioned  by  a  craftsman  who,  having  lived  all  his  life  among  the  best 
models,  will  have  nothing  common  or  flimsy  in  his  own  work." 

THE  WORKS  OF  KATHARINE  TYNAN  HINKSON 

CUCKOO  SONGS.      i6mo.     $1.25. 

OUR  LORD'S  COMING  AND  CHILDHOOD.      Six  Miracle  Plays.     With  six  illustrations 

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Mr.  William  Archer:  "Very  Irish,  very  feminine,  very  human,  Mrs.  Katharine  Tynan  Hinkson 
possesses  a  clear  and  beautiful  vein  of  talent,  which  might,  indeed,  be  too  grandiloquently  praised,  but  can 
scarcely  be  overvalued.  Mrs.  Hinkson  is  a  born  poetess  if  ever  there  was  one.  All  impressions  from 
without,  whether  of  nature,  love,  patriotism,  or  devotion,  find  their  spontaneous  reaction  in  poetry,  and 
touch  her  soul  to  song,  and  the  note  of  her  singing  is  always  pure,  fresh,  limpid,  sincere." 

THE   WORKS    OF   EDMOND    HOLMES 

THE    SILENCE    OF    LOVE:    Sonnets.      Post  4*0.      #1.50.      Second  edition. 

Also  issued  in  the  "  Lover's  Library."      Cloth  50  cents  net ;  leather  75  cents  net. 

WHAT    IS    POETRY?     An  Essay.      Post  4to.      $1.25. 

WALT    WHITMAN:   An  Essay  and  a  Selection.      Post  4to.      $i.*$net. 

Tlte  Chicago  Times-Herald:  "  Mr.  Holmes  has  studied  the  best  masters,  and  has  studied  them  well.  He 
has,  moreover,  the  natural  grace  and  instinct  of  the  poet.  Such  production  is  as  refreshing  as  an  oasis  in 
these  days." 

The  Lo7idon  Times:  "A  volume  of  quite  uncommon  beauty  and  distinction.  The  Shakespearean  in- 
fluence that  is  suggested  shows  that  the  author  has  gone  to  school  with  the  best  masters,  and  his  mastery 
of  the  form  he  has  chosen  gives  the  best  evidence  of  conscientious  workmanship." 

THE   WORKS    OF   NORA    HOPPER 

UNDER    QUICKENED   BOUGHS,      nmo.     #1.50. 

BALLADS   IN    PROSE.     Small  4to.     $1.50. 

Mr.  William  Archer:  "A  very  frank,  free,  imaginative,  and  melodious  talent  is  that  of  Miss  Nora 
Hopper.  She  has  in  full  measure  all  the  poetic  qualities  of  her  Celtic  race,  without  the  metaphysical  fa- 
naticisms which  sometimes  accompany  them.  There  is  nothing  morbid,  nothing  overstrained  about  her 
work.     There  is  originality,  sincerity,  melody  in  all  she  does,  she  is  a  born  singer  of  songs." 


THE   WORKS   OF   A.    E.    HOUSMAN 

A    SHROPSHIRE    LAD:   Poems.      Leather.      i8mo.     $1.00  net. 

Mr.  William  Archer:  "  One  of  Mr.  Housman's  strongest  and  rarest  qualities  —  his  unerring  dramatic 
instinct.  It  is  long  since  we  have  caught  just  this  note  in  English  verse  —  the  note  of  intense  feeling 
uttering  itself  in  language  of  unadorned  precision,  uncontorted  truth.  _  Mr.  Housman  is  a  vernacular  poet, 
if  ever  there  was  one.  '  But  if  he  is  vernacular,  he  is  also  classical  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  His 
simplicity  is  not  that  of  weakness  but  of  strength  and  skill.  He  eschews  extrinsic  and  factitious  ornament 
because  he  knows  how  to  attain  beauty  without  it." 

THE   WORK    OF   LAURENCE    HOUSMAN 

GREEN  ARRAS  :  Poems.  With  six  illustrations,  title-page,  cover-design,  and  end-papers  by 
the  author.      i2mo.      $1.50. 

Mr.  William  Archer  :  "  I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  strength,  the  terseness,  the  fine  technical  quality  of 
these  verses.  Everywhere,  as  it  seems  to  me,  Mr.  Housman's  work  is  essentially  poetic.  Mr.  Housman 
always  writes  with  distinction,  sometimes  with  real  beauty,  and  generally  with  as  much  perspicuity  as  can 
be  demanded  of  a  poet  who  dwells  exclusively  on  matters  which,  by  hypothesis,  transcend  human  reason." 

THE    POEMS    OF   EDWARD    CRACROFT   LEFROY 

POEMS.     With  a  Memoir  by  W.  V.  Gill,  and  a  Critical  Estimate  by  John  Addington  Symonds. 
With  a  frontispiece  portrait.      l2mo.      $1.50. 

John  Addington  Symonds  :  "  The  artistic  value  of  Lefroy's  work  is  great.  .  .  .  Lefroy  proved  that  it  is 
possible  to  combine  religious  faith  with  frank  delight  in  natural  loveliness,  to  be  a  Christian  without  asceti- 
cism, and  a  Greek  without  sensuality.  .  .  .  This  simplicity  and  absolute  sincerity  of  instinct  are  surely 
uncommon  in  our  perplexed  epoch.  To  rest  for  a  moment  upon  the  spontaneous  and  unambitious  poetry 
which  glowed  from  such  a  nature  cannot  fail  to  refresh  minds  wearied  with  the  storm  and  stress  of  modern 
thought." 

THE  WORKS  OF  ALICE  MEYNELL 

LATER  POEMS.      nmo.     $1.00  net.      Uniform  with  "  Poems." 

The  Chicago  Tribune:  "  In  this  little  volume  of'  Later  Poems'  there  are  many  charming  verses,  and 
probably  no  living  English  woman  poet  stands  on  the  same  plane  with  her." 

POEMS,      nmo.     $1 .00  net.  Fourth  edition 

Mr.  George  Meredith,  in  The  National  Review,  August,  1896 :  "To  the  metrical  themes  attempted 
by  her  she  brings  emotion,  sincerity,  together  with  an  exquisite  play  upon  our  finer  chords  quite  her  own, 
not  to  be  heard  from  another.  Some  of  her  lines  have  the  living  tremor  in  them.  The  poems  are  beautiful 
in  idea  as  in  grace  of  touch." 

THE  RHYTHM  OF  LIFE,  and  Other  Essays,      nmo.     $1.00  net.  Fourth  edition 

Ath&ncBum  {Londo?i)  :  "  Full   of  profound,    searching,    sensitive   appreciation  of   all  kinds   of  subjects. 
Exercises  in  close  thinking,  and  exact  expression  almost  unique  in  the  literature  of  the  day." 
Mr.  Coventry  Patmore,  in  The  Fortnightly  Review :  "  I  am  about  to  direct  attention  to  one  of  the  very 
rarest  products  of  nature  and  grace  —  a  woman  of  genius,  one  who  I  am  bound  to  confess  has  falsified  the 
assertion  I  made  some  time  ago  that  no  female  writer  of  our  time  has  attained  to  true  '  distinction.'  " 

THE  COLOUR  OF  LIFE,  and  Other  Essays.      nmo.     $1.00  net.  Fourth  edition. 

Mr.  George  Meredith,  in  The  National  Review  :  "  I  can  fancy  Matthew  Arnold  lighting  on  such 
essays  as  I  have  named,  saying  with  refreshment,  '  She  can  write  !  '  It  does  not  seem  to  me  too  bold  to 
imagine  Carlisle's  listening,  without  the  weariful  gesture,  to  his  wife's  reading  of  the  same,  hearing  them  to 
the  end,  and  giving  his  comment,  'That  woman  thinks.'  " 


THE  WORKS  OF  ALICE  MEYNELL  —  Continued 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  PLACE,  and  Other  Essays.      i2mo.     $1.00  net. 

The  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle:  "A  volume  of  delightful  essays.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  essayist  has 
fver  received  so  much  reverential  praise  from  contemporaries  as  Mrs.  Alice  Meynell.  Certainly  no  woman 
t>as  ever  been  so  universally  acknowledged  as  having  complete  command  of  English.  Ruskiu,  George 
Meredith,  and  the  leading  reviewers  are  for  once  agreed." 

THE    CHILDREN.       With    Covers,    End-papers,    Title-page,    Initials,  and   other    Ornaments 

designed  by  Will  H.  Bradley.      New  Edition  in  preparation.      i2mo.    $1.00  net. 

This  is  the  first  book  printed  at  the  Wayside  Press  by  Will  H.  Bradley. 

Professor  J.  Sully:  "  To  a  pretty  theme  she  has  applied  her  prettiest  manner.  She  comes  certificated 
by  authoritative  hand,  as  trained  by  maternal  sympathy  in  the  unlocking  of  children's  secrets." 

THE   WORKS   OF   F.  B.  MONEY-COUTTS 

THE  REVELATION  OF  ST.   LOVE  THE  DIVINE:  A   Poem.      i6mo.     $1.00. 

THE  ALHAMBRA,  AND  OTHER  POEMS,      i2mo.     #1.25. 

POEMS.      l2mo.      $1.25. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  GODLINESS.     i6mo.     #1.00. 

Stephen  Phillips:  "The  reader  feels  behind  this  verse  always  a  brave  and  tender  spirit,  a  soul  which 
has  at  any  rate  '  beat  its  music  out ;  '  which  will  not  compromise,  which  cannot  lie,  which  is  in  love  with  the 
highest  that  it  sees." 

H.  D.  Traill  :  "  Mr.  Money-Coutts  is  master  of  the  rare  and  difficult  art  of  clothing  thought  in  the  true 
poetic  language." 

The  London  Daily  Chronicle  says  :  "  Mr.  Money-Coutts  has  imagination  and  feeling  in  plenty ;  he  has 
vigour  and  sincerity  of  thought  ;  and  he  has  often  a  very  noteworthy  felicity  of  phrase.  He  is  a  strong  poetic 
craftsman,  and  his  work  is  always  carefully  and  delicately  finished.  It  is  plain  on  every  page  that  Mr. 
Coutts  is  a  serious  and  strenuous  craftsman,  who  places  a  fine  and  individual  faculty  at  the  service  of  a  lofty 
ideal." 

THE   WORK    OF   E.  NESBIT  (MRS.  bland) 

A  POMANDER  OF  VERSE,      iamo.     #1.50. 

Mr.  William  Archer  :  "  There  is  more  feeling  than  art  in  the  poetry  of  Miss  E.  Nesbit ;  but  the  feeling 
is  often  very  genuine,  and  of  the  art  one  may  at  least  say  that  it  has  ripened  with  every  book  the  poetess  has 
put  forth.  Miss  Nesbit  had  from  the  first  a  remarkable  fluency  and  a  correct  ear  for  metres.  Her  real 
strength  is  centred  in  the  pure  lyric,  whether  personal  or  semi-dramatic.  It  is  in  the  simplicity  of  the 
sheer  love-song  that  Miss  Nesbit  touches  her  truest  note." 

THE  WORKS    OF    HENRY   NEWBOLT 

ADMIRALS  ALL,   AND  OTHER  POEMS.      i6mo.     35  cents. 
THE  ISLAND  RACE:  Poems.      i6mo.     $1.00. 

The  London  Daily  Chronicle:  "Perfect  in  their  kind,  and  could  not  be  bettered." 

The  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat :  "  Delicate,  and  almost  elusive,  as  is  the  spirit  of  his  muse,  it  yet  sweeps 
the  whole  range  of  human  life  and  whispers  not  too  boldly,  but  yet  all  trustingly,  of  the  life  beyond  or  behind 
it.  The  spiritual  tone  that  uplifts  it  is  one  of  the  special  merits  of  this  poet's  verse,  and  its  lyric  sweetness 
and  melody  its  unfailing  charm.  There  are  no  halting  rhymes  anywhere,  nor  any  labored  notes  or  hard 
coined  words  to  break  the  grace,  delicacy,  and  clearness  of  both  poetic  thought  and  expression." 
The  New  York  Tribune:  "  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  come  upon  a  new  singer." 


THE    WORKS    OF   STEPHEN    PHILLIPS 

HEROD  :  A  Tragedy  in  Three  Acts.  Twenty-first  Thousand.  Green 
Cloth.      i2mo.      Price  $1.25  net. 

The  opinion  of  The  London  Times :  "  Here,  then,  is  a  noble  work  of  dramatic  imagination,  dealing  greatly 
with  great  passion  ;  multi-coloured  and  exquisitely  musical.  Though  it  is  '  literature  '  throughout,  it  is  never 
the  literature  of  the  closet,  but  always  the  literature  of  the  theatre,  with  the  rapid  action,  the  marked  con- 
trasts, the  fierce  beating  passion,  the  broad  effects  proper  to  the  theatre.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Stephen 
Phillips  is  not  only  a  poet,  and  a  rare  poet,  but  that  still  rarer  thing,  a  dramatic  poet." 
The  Daily  News:  " The  drama  possesses  the  sovereign  quality  of  movement,  and  it  is  even  prodigal  in 
the  matter  of  dramatic  situations.  To  this  we  have  to  add  that  its  dialogue  speaks  the  language  of 
passion,  and  is  rarely  encumbered  by  mere  descriptive  or  reflective  passages." 

PAOLO  AND  FRANCESCA  :  A  Tragedy  in  Four  Acts.  Twenty-first 
Thousand.  New  Edition,  with  Protogravure  Frontispiece  after  the  painting 
by  G.  F.  Watts,  R.  A.      Green  Cloth,      nmo.      Price  $1.25  net. 

The  opinion  of  The  New  York  Times:  "  Nothing  finer  has  come  to  us  from  an  English  pen  in  the  way 
of  a  poetic  and  literary  play  than  this  since  the  appearance  of  Taylor's  '  Philip  von  Artevelde.'  " 
Mr.  William  Archer  in  The  Daily  Chronicle:    "A  thing  of  exquisite  poetic  form,  yet  tingling  from 
first  to   last  with  intense  dramatic  life.    Mr.  Phillips  has  achieved  the  impossible.    Sardou  could  not  have 
ordered  the  action  more  skilfully,  Tennyson  could  not  have  clothed  the  passion  in  words  of  purer  loveliness." 

POEMS.  Containing  "Christ  in  Hades,"  "  Marpessa,"  etc.  Twelfth  Thou- 
sand.     Green  Cloth,      nmo.      Price  $1.25  net. 

The  opinion  of  The  Londo?i  Times:  "Mr.  Phillips  is  a  poet,  one  of  the  half-dozen  men  of  the  younger 
generation  whose  writings  contain  the  indefinable  quality  which  makes  for  permanence." 
Mr.  William  Archer  in  The  Outlook:    "He  sees  clearly,  feels  intensely,  and  writes  beautifully;  in  a 
word  he  is  a  true  poet." 

MARPESSA.  With  seven  illustrations  by  Philip  Connard.  Tenth  Thousand. 
Square  i6mo.      Green  Cloth,  50c.  net;  Green  Leather,  75c.  net. 

The  opinion  of  Mr.  William  Watson  :  "  In  '  Marpessa '  he  has  demonstrated  what  I  should  hardly  have 
thought  demonstrable —  that  another  poem  can  be  finer  than  '  Christ  in  Hades.'  I  had  long  believed,  and 
my  belief  was  shared  by  not  a  few,  that  the  poetic  possibilities  of  classic  myth  were  exhausted ;  yet  the 
youngest  of  our  poets  takes  this  ancient  story  and  makes  it  newly  beautiful,  kindles  it  into  tremulous  life, 
clothes  it  with  the  mystery  of  interwoven  delight  and  pain,  and  in  the  best  sense  keeps  it  classical  all  the 
while." 

CHRIST  IN  HADES.  With  Illustrations  by  Henry  Ospovat.  Square  i6mo. 
Green  Cloth,  50c.  net;   Green  Leather,  75c.  net. 

The  opinion  of  Mr.  William  Dean  Howells  :  "  Spiritual  in  a  fine  way  Mr.  Phillips'  work  is,  running 
into  frank  realism  where  a  modern  theme  is  dealt  with,  and  keeping  a  high  idealism  where  the  question  is 
of  fable,  or  of  faith.  His  poems  of  'The  Woman  with  a  Dead  Soul,'  and  '  The  Wife,'  are  examples  in 
the  one  sort,  and  his  '  Marpessa'  and  '  Christ  in  Hades  '  are  instances  in  the  other.  In  power  of  picturing 
to  the  imagination  they  are  all  of  like  charm,  and  in  all  of  them  one  feels  the  glow  of  the  poet's  youth. 
Tennyson  at  his  age  had  not  done  better." 


THE  HUMOROUS  WORKS  OF  OWEN  SEAMAN 

IN  CAP   AND  BELLS:  A  Book  of  Verses.      i6mo.     $1.25. 
THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  BAYS.      i6mo.     $1.25.      Third  edition. 
HORACE  AT  CAMBRIDGE.      i6mo.      $1.25.      New  edition. 

The  Pall  Mall  Gazette :  "  Mr.  Seaman  must  be  tired  of  being  compared  to  Calverly  and  J.  K.  S.,  but  be  is 

of  their  company,  and  what  is  more,  on  their  level.  .  .  .  One  charm  of  writing  such  as  Mr.  Seaman's  is  that 

it  makes  us  feel  quite  obliged  to  poets  whom  we  have  never  admired,  for  being  so  good  to  parody." 

The  National  Observer:  "  His  versatility  and  ready  wit  are  conspicuous  in  all  his  work.     As  a  parodist  he 

is  second  to  none,  not  even  to  Mr.  Calverly.     Mr.  Seaman  cracks  the  whip  with  consummate  skill,  and 

applies   it  with   such   naughty   precision   that   even   his   victims  must  find  it   difficult  to  withhold   their 

admiration." 

THE  WORK  OF  DORA  SIGERSON  (M».  o*m*nt  shortm) 

THE  FAIRY  CHANGELING  AND  OTHER  POEMS,      izmo.     $1.50. 

Mr.  William  Archer  :  "  There  is  race  in  her  work;  it  smacks  of  the  soil;  it  is  no  mere  imitative  culture- 
product,  but  an  expression  of  innate  emotion  and  impulse.  Mrs.  Shorter  has  all  the  fanciful  melancholy, 
the  ardent  spirituality,  and  the  eerie-pathetic  invention  of  the  western  Kelts.  The  unseen  world  of  semi- 
malignant  elemental  beings  is  quite  as  real  to  her  as  the  tangible  world  of  her  five  senses.  Her  imagina- 
tion is   nourished  on  folk-lore." 

THE  WORKS  OF  ARTHUR  SYMONS 

THE  POEMS  OF  ARTHUR  SYMONS,  with  photogravure  portrait  of  the  author  as  frontis- 
piece.    In  two  volumes.      i2mo.      $3.50  net. 

Mr.  William  Archer:  "  Mr.  Symons  is  a  love  poet  or  nothing  ;  when  he  sings  of  love  he  is  himself  in 
the  expression  of  his  moods.  Mr.  Symons  often  attains  real  beauty.  He  writes  very  well  —  fluently, 
gracefuly,  without  the  slightest  harshness  or  vulgarity  of  form.  Mr.  Symons  does  not  merely  record  his 
own  actual  sensations  and  experiences,  but  gives  them  an  imaginative  extension,  working  out  in  detail  the 
data  they  provide,  the  possibilities  implicit  in  them.  We  encounter  a  distinct  personality,  an  individual 
note  and  a  restricted,  but  far  from  insignificant,  technical  accomplishment." 

THE  WORKS  OF  FRANCIS  THOMPSON 

POEMS.      With  Frontispiece  by  Laurence  Housman.      Pott  410.     $1.50.      Fifth  edition. 
SISTER  SONGS.      An  Offering  to  Two  Sisters.     With  frontispiece  by  Laurence  Housman. 

Pott  4to.      Buckram.      ,$1.50.      Fourth  edition. 
NEW  POEMS.      i2mo.     $1.50. 

H.  D.  Traill  in  the  Nineteenth  Century:  "I  can  hardly  doubt  that  at  least  that  minority  who  can 
recognize  the'  essentials  under  the  accidents  of  poetry,  and  who  feel  that  it  is  to  poetic  Form  only,  and  not  to 
forms,  that  eternity  belongs,  will  agree  that,  alike  in  wealth  and  dignity  of  imagination,  in  depth  and 
subtlety  of  thought,  and  in  magic  and  mastery  of  language  a  new  poet  of  the  first  rank  is  to  be  welcomed 
in  this  author." 

Coventry  Patmore  in  the  Fortnightly  Review:  "Profound  thought  and  far-fetched  splendor  of 
imagery,  and  nimble-witted  discernment  of  those  analogies  which  are  the  roots  of  the  poet's  language, 
abound,  —  qualities  which  ought  to  place  him  in  the  prominent  ranks  of  fame." 

THE  WORK  OF  HERBERT  TRENCH 

DEIRDRE  WED,  AND  OTHER  POEMS,  nmo.  $1.50. 

The  Westminster  Gazette  says:  "Mr.  Herbert  Trench's  little  volume  contains  the  best  hundred 
pages  of  English  verse  which  the  younger  school  of  the  last  two  decades  has  produced.  But  it  represents 
more  than  this.  Grace  of  metre  and  scholarly  expression  have  now  become  the  birthright  of  the  many 
minor  bards.  Mr.  Trench  takes  his  readers  into  a  wider  air;  his  best  lines  are  touched  with  the  spacious 
majesty  of  the  Elizabethan  singers;  his  imagery  is  not  sensuous  only;  it  is  simple;  and  he  can  be 
passionate  as  well." 

St.  James's  Gazette:  "A  notable  poem.  The  first  serious  attempt  of  a  modern  poet  to  use  the  Irish 
material  as  the  great  masters  have  used  the  classics.  .  .  .  Admirably  does  the  poetry  reflect  the  elemental 
spirit  and  passion,  breathing  through  legendary  souls.     Instinct  with  feeling  for  bold  archaic  grandeur." 


THE  WORKS  OF  WILLIAM  WATSON 

The  Collected  Poems  of  William  Watson.  Designed  cover.  iamo.  $2.50.  This 
volume  includes  the  work  contained  in  the  author's  volumes,  "Poems,"  "  Lachrymae 
Musarum,"  "Odes,  and  Other  Poems,"  "The  Father  of  the  Forest,  and  Other  Poems," 
"The  Year  of  Shame,"  and  "The  Hope  of  the  World,  and  Other  Poems,"  with  the 
exception  of  a   few   poems  excluded  by  the  author. 

The  London  Daily  Chronicle  says:  "As  we  look  through  this  collected  edition  of  his  work  we  feel 
confirmed  in  our  belief  that  whatever  his  limitations,  and  they  are  not  few,  it  is  Mr.  Watson's  function  and 
his  glory  to  hand  on,  in  this  generation,  the  great  classical  tradition  of  English  poetry.  On  the  threshold 
of  the  twentieth  century  he  reconciles  and  brings  to  a  common  denominator,  as  it  were,  the  best  qualities  of 
eighteenth-century  and  of  nineteenth-century  verse.  He  is  the  heir  no  less  of  Dryden  than  of  Tennyson  ;  it 
is  hard  to  say  whether  Keats  or  Pope  has  more  potentially  influenced  him.  There  is  significance  in  the  fact 
that  his  favorite  instrument,  which  he  fingers  with  the  utmost  mastery,  is  the  classic  instrument  of  the 
English  Muse  —  the  iambic  pentameter.  Pregnant,  resonant,  memorable  lines  flow  inexhaustibly  from  his 
pen;  and  some  of  them,  we  venture  to  predict,  will  live  with  the  language." 

The  London  Daily  News  says :  "The  swing  and  rush  of  the  verse  in  the  great  themes;  its  epigram- 
matic felicity  in  others;  its  mastery  in  all  the  science  of  this  highest  of  the  high  arts,  will  make  the 
volume  a  model  for  the  craftsman,  an  abiding  delight  to  all  who  possess  what,  we  fear,  must  still  be  called 
the  acquired  taste  for  fine  things  finely  said." 

The  following  separate  Volumes  by  Mr.   William  Watson  may  still  be  had : 


The  Prince's  Quest,  and  Other  Poems, 

Poems.     $1.25. 

Lachrymse  Musarum.      $1.25. 

The  Eloping  Angels.      #1.25. 

Odes,  and  Other  Poems.      $1.50. 

The  Father  of  the  Forest,  and  Other  Poems. 

The  Purple  East.      $0.50. 

The  Year  of  Shame.     #1.00. 

The  Hope  of  the  World,  and  Other  Poems. 

Excursions  in  Criticism.     $1.50. 


I.50.  [  Third  edition 

[Fifth  edition 

[Fourth  edition 

[Second  edition 

[Fifth  edition 

[Fifth  edition 

[  Third  edition 

[Second  edition 

[  Third  edition 

[Second  edition 

WATTS-DUNTON 


a.25. 


.25. 


THE   WORKS    OF   THEODORE 

JUBILEE  GREETING  AT  SPITHEAD   TO  THE  MEN  OF  GREATER  BRITAIN. 

l2mo.      50  cents. 
THE   COMING   OF    LOVE:    Rhona  Boswell's  Story,  and    Other   Poems,      iamo.     $2.00. 

Second  edition. 
NEW  POEMS,     iamo.     $1.50  »*r. 

The  Times  :   "  His  verses  breathe  the  spirit  of  fraternity  among  all  the  people  of  the  Empire." 
Literature:    "In    'The  Coming  of   Love'  (which,  though  published  earlier,  is  a   sequel  to   'Aylwin.') 
he  has  given  us  an  unforgettable,  we  cannot  but  believe  an  enduring  portrait ;  one  of  the  few  immortal 
women  of  the  imagination.     Rhona  Boswell  comes  again  into  '  Aylwin.'  " 
The  Star:    "We  can   recall   no    study   of   the    love-passion    that    can    compare    with    'Aylwin.'      It 


declines  to  be  classed.     It  is  of  no  school, 
new,  its  ethical  message  is  new." 


It  owns  no  lineage,  acknowledges  no  tradition.     Its  form  is 


WILLIAM    BUTLER   YEATS 

THE  WIND  AMONG  THE  REEDS.      i2mo.     #1.25. 

Mr.  William  Archer  :  "  It  is  with  Mr.  Yeats  that,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  genuine  spirit  of  Irsh  antiquity 
and  Irish  folk-lore  makes  its  first  entrance  into  English  verse.  In  Mr.  Yeats  we  have  an  astonishing  union 
of  primitive  imagination  and  feeling  with  cultivated  and  consciously  artistic  expression.  The  very  spirit 
of  the  myth-makers  and  myth-believers  is  in  him.  His  imaginative  life  finds  its  spontaneous,  natural 
utterance' in  the  language  of  the  '  Keltic  twilight.'  This  is  no  literary  jargon  to  him,  but  his  veritable 
mother  tongue." 


The  BOOKS  of  SOME  CLASSICS 


MATTHEW   ARNOLD 

POEMS.  All  those  contained  in  the  Canterbury  Series,  with  others.  With 
an  Introduction  by  Arthur  C.  Benson,  and  upwards  of  70  illustrations  and 
cover  design,  by  Henry  Ospovat.      8vo.      Price  $2.50. 

ROBERT   STEPHEN    HAWKER 

THE  POETICAL  WORKS  OF  ROBERT  STEPHEN  HAWKER, 
M.A.,  OF  MORWENSTOW.  Edited,  with  a  Prefatory  Note  and 
Bibliography,  by  Alfred  Wallis,  with  a  frontispiece  portrait  of  the  author. 
i2mo.     Price  $2.00. 

PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY  and  ELIZABETH  SHELLEY 
ORIGINAL  POETRY.     By  Victor  and   Cazire  (Percy  Bysshe   Shelley 

and  Elizabeth  Shelley).    Edited  by  Richard  Garnett,    C.B.,  LL.D. 

Large  8vo.      Price  $1.50. 

This  is  a  page-for-page  reprint  of  the  first  volume  of  poems  published  by  Shelley  before  he  was 
eighteen.  It  was  rigidly  suppressed  by  him,  owing  to  a  fraud  practised  on  him  by  the  other 
contributor  to  the  volume.  Record  of  the  title  only  remained  \  a  source  of  puzzled  conjecture  to 
all  Shelley  students,  many  of  whom  were  disposed  to  doubt  whether  such  a  volume  had  really  ever 
existed.  The  unique  copy  from  which  this  reprint  was  made  was  discovered  in  1889  in  the  posses- 
sion of  a  member  of  the  family.  The  American  edition  consists  of  only  250  copies,  of  which 
but  a  few  remain. 

FREDERICK   TENNYSON 

POEMS  OF  THE  DAY  AND  YEAR.  By  Frederick  Tennyson,  brother 
of  the  late  laureate,  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson.  With  a  frontispiece  portrait 
of  the  author,  specially  designed  title-page,  etc.      I  2mo.       Price  $1.50. 

SHAKESPEARE'S    SONNETS 

With  fourteen  illustrations  and  ornaments  by  Henry  Ospovat.  Square  l6mo. 
Buckram,  gilt  top.      Price  $1.25  net, 

Saturday  Rein 'civ  :  "No  one  could  desire  an  edition  of  the  Sonnets  more  tastefully  and  charmingly 
got  up  than  this." 

SHAKESPEARE'S   SONGS 

With  eleven  illustrations  and  ornaments  by  Henry  Ospovat.      Square    i6mo. 

Buckram,  gilt  top.      Price  $1.25  net. 

The  Literary  World:  "The  excellent  drawings,  together  with  tasteful  binding  and  good  paper, 
make  the  work  a  very  suitable  gift-book." 


THE  LOVER'S  LIBRARY 

Edited  by  Frederic  Chapman.  Size  5^  x  3  inches.  Bound  in  Violet  or  Apple- 
Green  Cloth,  price  50  cents  net  j  Bound  in  Violet  or  Apple-Green  Leather, 
price  75  cents  net. 

Vol.  I.   The  Love  Poems  of  Shelley. 

Vol.  II.   The  Love  Poems  of   Browning. 

Vol.  III.  The  Silence  of  Love. 

Vol.  IV.  The  Love  Poems  of  Tennyson. 

Vol.  V.   The  Love  Poems  of  Landor. 

Vol.  VI.   The  Love  Poems  of  E.    B.   Browning. 

Vol.  VII.   The  Love  Poems  of  Robert  Burns. 

Vol.  VIII.   The  Love  Poems  of  Sir  John  Suckling. 

Vol.  IX.   The  Love  Poems  of   Herrick. 

Vol.  X.  The  Love  Poems  of  W.  S.  Blunt   (Proteus J 

Volumes  in  Preparation. 

Vol.  XI.  The  Sonnets  of  Shakespeare. 

It  is  sought  to  include  in  a  group  of  compact  little  volumes  the  best  Love  Poems  of  the  great  British 
poets  ;  and  from  time  to  time  a  volume  of  prose,  or  a  volume  of  modern  verse  which  may  be  con- 
sidered of  sufficient  importance,  will  be  added  to  the  Library. 

The  delicate  decorations,  on  the  pages,  end-papers,  and  covers,  make  the  little  books  dainty  enough 
for  small  presents,  and  it  is  hoped  that  those  who  do  not  receive  them  as  presents  from  others  will 
seize  the  opportunity  of  making  presents  to  themselves. 

FLOWERS  OF  PARNASSUS 

A  Series  of  famous  Poems  Illustrated.  Under  the  General  Editorship  of  F.  B. 
Money-Coutts.  Demy  i6mo  (5%  x  4^),  gilt  top.  Bound  in  Cloth,  price 
50  cents  net  j   Bound  in  Leather,  price  75  cents  net. 

Vol.  1.   Gray's  Elegy,  and  Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College.      With  Twelve  Illus- 
trations by  J.  T.  Friedenson. 

Vol.  II.  The  Statue  and  the    Bust.       By  Robert  Browning.       With  Nine  Illustrations  by 
Philip  Connard. 

Vol.     II.    Marpessa.      By  Stephen  Phillips.      With  Seven  Illustrations  by  Philip  Connard. 

Vol.  IV.    The  Blessed   Damozel.      By   Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.      With   Eight  Illustrations   by 
Percy  Bulcock. 

Vol.  V.   The  Nut-Brown  Maid.      A  New  Version  By  F.  B.  Money-Coutts.     With  Nine  Il- 
lustrations by  Herbert  Cole. 

Vol.  VI.  A  Dream  of  Fair  Women.       By  Alfred  Tennyson.       With  Illustrations  by  Percy 
Bulcock. 

Vol.  VII.    A  Day  Dream.      By  Alfred  Tennyson.      With  Eight  Illustrations  by  Amelia  Bauerle. 

Vol.  VIII.    A   Ballade    upon  a  Wedding.     By  Sir  John  Suckling.      With  Nine  Illustrations 
by  Herbert  Cole. 

Vol.  IX.   The    Rubaiyat    of    Omar    Khayyam.       Rendered   into    English  Verse  by  Edward 
FitzGerald.     With  Nine  Illustrations  by  Herbert  Cole. 

Vol.  X.  The  Rape  of  the  Lock.      By  Alexander  Pope.      With  Nine  Illustrations  by  Aubrey 
Beardsley . 

Vol.  XI.  Christmas  at  the  Mermaid.      By  Theodore  Watts-Dunton.     With  Nine  Illustrations 
by  Herbert  Cole. 

Vol.  XII.    Songs  of  Innocence.      By  William  Blake.      With   Nine  Illustrations  by  Geraldine 
Morris. 

Volumes  in  Preparation 

Vol.  XIII.  The  Sensitive  Plant.      By  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.     With  illustrations  by  F.  L.  B. 

Griggs. 
Vol.  XIV.    Christ  in  H^.des.      By  Stephen  Phillips.      With  illustrations  by  Henry  Ospovat. 
Vol.  XV.    Wordsworth's  Grave.     By  William  Watson.    With  illustrations  by  F.  L.  B.  Griggs. 


A  LIST  of  the   BODLEY   HEAD    EDITIONS  of 

The  Rubaiyatof  Omar  Khayyam 

EDWARD  FITZGERALD'S  RENDERING 

THE  RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM.  Rendered  into  English  Verse 
by  Edward  FitzGerald,  with  an  Introduction  by  F.  B.  Money-Coutts,  and 
with  twelve  illustrations  on  Japanese  Vellum  from  the  pen  of  Herbert  Cole. 
A  sumptuous  Edition  de  Luxe,  bound  in  White  Vellum,  tied  with  art-green 
ribands.      Only  ioo  copies.      8vo.      Price  $5.00  net. 

THE  RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM.  A  diminutive  booklet  version 
of  the  above  edition,  with  nine  illustrations  by  Herbert  Cole.  Being  Volume 
IX.  of  the  series  of  "  Flowers  of  Parnassus."  About  5  inches  square.  Green 
cloth,  price  50  cents  net.      Green  leather,  price  75  cents  net. 

MRS.  CADELL'S  TRANSLATION 

THE  RUBA'YAT   OF    OMAR    KHAYAM.     Translated   by    Mrs.    H.    M. 

Cadell,  with  an  Introduction   by  Richard   Garnett,   C.B.,  LL.D.       nrao. 

Price  $1.25. 
N.  B. — This  version  may  be  looked  upon  as  one  aiming  at  accurate  translation  of 

the  original  Persian  into  English  verse. 

THE  CORVO-NICOLAS  VERSION 

THE  RUBAIYAT  OF  UMAR  KHAIYAM.  Done  into  English  from  the 
French  of  J.  B.  Nicolas.  By  Frederick  Baron  Corvo,  together  with 
a  Reprint  of  the  French  text.  With  a  Preface  by  Nathan  Haskell  Dole. 
i2mo.      Price  $2.50  net. 

RICHARD  LE  GALLIENNE'S  PARAPHRASE 

RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM.  A  Paraphrase  from  Various  Trans- 
lations. Printed  by  Will  H.  Bradley  at  the  Wayside  Press,  and  with  cover- 
design  also  by  Will  H.  Bradley. 

A  new  edition  of  the  above  work,  with  fifty  additional  quatrains,  bound  in  the  same 
cover,  with  a  difference.      izmo.      Price  $1.50  net. 

LUCRETIUS  ON  LIFE  AND  DEATH 

In  the  Metre  of  FitzGerald' s  Omar  Khayyam.      To  which  are  appended  parallel 
passages  from  the  original.      By  W.  H.  Mallock.    With  title-page  and  cover  ' 
designed  by  A.  K.  Womrath.      nmo.      Price  $1.50 

Few 


same  metre  as  FitzGerald's  Omar,  presents  a  telling  standard  for  comparison  between  the  works  of  the 
Roman  and  the  Persian  poet-philosophers. 
Mr,  Money-Coutts  in  his  preface  to  "The  Rubaivat":  "Job  is  less  known  than  Omar,  and  will,  perhaps, 
soon  be  less  known  than  Lucretius,  now  that  Mr.  Mallock  has  given  us  a  transmutation  of  the  Roman 
into  the  Rubaivat  metre  of  so  smooth  and  honeyed  a  dignity  that  neither  the  learned  nor  the  unlearned 
remain  unattracted." 


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